A mountain herdsman wedded to the traditions of his forefathers and a widowed waitress who throws up everything to pursue a doctor in a soap opera are the main protagonists in the new films opening at the Phoenix this week. Chalk and cheese, perhaps. But Himalaya and Nurse Betty make for a deliciously idiosyncratic double bill, writes David Parkinson.

Originally known as Caravan, the title under which it was unexpectedly nominated for an Oscar, travel writer Eric Valli's debut feature is both a spectacular portrait of one of the planet's last unspoilt regions and a respectful tribute to a passing way of life. But the drama is more incidental than integral to what is more obviously a travelogue or ethnographical study than compelling fiction.

With its confrontation between tradition and progress, youth and experience, it resembles such psychological Westerns as Howard Hawks's Red River, while its emphasis on the indomitability of humanity in the face of forbidding terrain, recalls another Oscar surprise, Xavier Koller's Journey of Hope. Having lost his heir on a transhimalayan trek, Tinle (Thilen Lhondup), the venerable tribal chief, hopes his younger son, Norbu (Karma Tensing Nyima Lama), will escort the next consignment of salt to market. But on his refusal, Tinle insists on heading the yak caravan himself, as he has no faith in Karma (Gurgon Kyap), the strapping herdsman whose modern methods he believes killed his son. Consequently, rival expeditions set out, only for them to meet again in the face of adversity.

There are several moments of high-rise peril and some intense encounters en route, but the action lacks momentum and the melodrama is too unfocused to engross. The film's French subtitle translates as 'The Childhood of a Chief', but there's little emphasis placed on young Pasang (Karma Wangiel) and only passing reference is made to the possible ramifications of losing a father and then seeing his mother (Lhapka Tsamchoe from Seven Years in Tibet) flirting with Karma, the man challenging his beloved grandfather for supremacy. Yet, technically the film is astounding, with Eric Guichard and Jean-Paul Meurisse's widescreen photography providing views that are not only beautiful in themselves, but which also go some way to compensating for the comparative lack of tangible drama. The star of the show is undoubtedly the Dolpo region of the northern Himalayas, which not only provides the awesome backdrop for the story, but also plays its implacable adversary. However, Thilen Lhondup, who has made this same journey countless times during his long life, is a study in wizened wisdom and stubborn determination.

But what is, perhaps, most affecting is the film's timelessness. The trek could just as easily have taken place centuries ago as in the recent past, as the tactics and dangers of the journey have barely changed down the years. Reinforcing this temporal neutrality is a studied refusal to mention the current plight of the Tibetan people in the face of Chinese oppression. Himalaya is too slight to be fascinating and too deliberate to be elegiac. But it provides a welcome change of pace from the summer's all-too-predictable slam-bam blockbusters.

Having made a deep impression with In the Company of Men and Your Friends and Neighbours, indie icon Neil LaBute dips a toe into the mainstream with Nurse Betty.

Rene Zellweger excels in this adroit blend of comic fantasy and social satire. But LaBute's trademark acerbity has been somewhat diluted by the fact that he didn't pen the occasionally fanciful script. Thus, while it's possible to concur that witnessing her husband's brutal murder could send a TV-addicted waitress on an odyssey to romance her hospital soap hero, it takes a sizeable suspension of disbelief to accept that the actor playing that role (Greg Kinnear) would buy into her delusion. Her impact on chillingly professional hitman, Morgan Freeman, is similarly strained (as is his relationship with motor-mouthed partner, Chris Rock).

However, the darkly comic undercurrent that makes LaBute's work so uncomfortably compelling ensures that this engagingly offbeat and hugely enjoyable daydream is more than just another sappy romcom.