Everest is Exciting, Character-Driven Spectacle

Rating: 7/10 (7 September 2015)

Famously chronicled by Jon Krakauer (one mountaineer involved who actually survived) in his book Into Thin Air, this movie brings the horror to the big screen. Many mountaineers are here, ready to take on the mountain, and an all-star cast is there to portray them. Beck Weathers, a Texas pathologist (Josh Brolin), Doug, a mailman (John Hawkes), Jon Krakauer, the writer (Michael Kelly), Scott Fischer, an experienced mountaineer and guide (Jake Gyllenhaal), and Guy Cotter, another experienced climber, played by Sam Worthington, as well as assorted others. In base camp, there's Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), and back at home, Beck's wife (Robin Wright), and Rob's pregnant wife, Jan (Keira Knightley). As said before, all these climbers are here, under the watchful gaze of Rob, to conquer the ultimate peak. Rob has done it more than a few times, but every climber has their personal reasons. The movie strongly begs the question of what brings so many diverse people, from so many different backgrounds and life stories, together on a possibly suicidal mission of the body and soul. All of them are hopeful, opportunistic, even excited, all completely scared, and nothing can prepare them for the disaster that lies ahead. The looming nightmare that lurks in the clouds distant from the mountain for the first half of Everest provide a definite amount of the suspense, and also the dread. It's not easy to see characters that you care about heading towards their possible deaths, especially the ones you know are going to die. Though partly due purely to human nature, it's also helped along by the fact that the performances, as well as script, on which this film lies, are fantastic. For a spectacle movie, the performances are astonishingly realistic, and fabulously written, as to make the characters even easier to empathize with. These aren't characters, they're real people, real people who faced the struggle of a lifetime, and just barely, possibly, could make it out alive. Everest is built on realism, a reason that I was skeptical the all-star cast was really a good decision, but they are. Like I said, the performances are fantastic, and well-written as they are, I got a really good feel for the characters relationships, mindsets, and backgrounds, which helped in then being able to understand their various drives for survival. Once the groups have reached the top of Everest, a few sentimentally-driven decisions, as well as just pure bad luck in the harsh force of nature, doom the party. It's a hellish situation. People don't know which way to go, struggling with oxygen and injuries. It doesn't help that the blizzard blocks out basically any vision whatsoever, and also that they are, as Rob puts it, at the "cruising hight of a 747." In technical aspects, this movie is also very well done. The cinematography is beautiful, and the effects used to put the characters on Everest are impressive to say the least. I believed it from the start, and the film does a really great job of putting in perspective the sheer scope of the mountain, and how small the climbers are compared to it. Yet, this movie is less spectacle-driven than character-driven, and though the circumstance though true, is extreme, the characters, and their internal, as well as external struggles to survive, are what drive the story forward. At home, both Beck and Rob's wives are helpless at the phone, so far away from the struggle of their spouses, yet so close in heart, and feeling all the more pain for it. Beck's wife is ready to get into action, while Rob's pleads with him on the phone over the broken connection of a walkie-talkie. Those words, however, only go so far. There's no villain here to hate, no excuse to be given, it's a disaster, a pure tragedy, and the movie accepts that, portraying the event as is, with not much fluff to even out the harshness of the events that take place. It's exciting, breathtaking, but also tragic. I don't want to give too much away, but the only flaws I really have with this movie are in a few scenes (which I won't mention), that I possibly would have filmed differently to carry across the dramatic effect. This isn't flashy directing, so there's nothing very attention- calling to the way that it's presented. Everest is a very realistic disaster drama, so much that as the disaster takes place, it's hard to tell which A-list cast members you're even looking at. Honestly, this is a hard movie to grade, because in it's heart, it is an experience film. This is a movie that you go to see in the theaters, in fairly astounding and totally immersive IMAX 3D (like I did). Everest both operates as a touching tribute to those unfortunately involved, and doesn't try to find false beauty in the tragic outcomes had by some people. It becomes quite emotional at times because of that. Overall, Everest is a very good movie with very good performances by a stellar cast who take their performances to heart. The cinematography is beautiful, and technically, this movie accomplishes it's aims at being both a character-piece and and a gigantic spectacle movie at the same time. Is it happy? No. Is it scary? Sometimes. Does it make me want to climb Everest? Hell no, the opposite.