A beautiful piece of sentimental boredom

Rating: 5/10 (14 September 2015)

The 1996 Mount Everest disaster took eight lives on that spring day in May, where the Adventure Consultants 1996 expedition, led by Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), loose four climbers in their expedition. The other climbers include Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) and three border police (which the film kinda totally skips) who died trying to rescue the stranded climbers.
What's good about 'Everest'?
The scenery is impeccable. Crisp Mountain peaks, swirling cloud, glimmering skies. Salvatore Totino (The Davinci Code) truly turns 'Everest' into a visual spectacle, which sets up the tone for a great mountain adventure. But Everest itself does not feature as a character. Not enough was done to bring it to life.
Emily Watson and Keira Knightley do a splendid job of portraying a helpless Base Camp manager and the equally helpless wife of Rob Hall, respectively. Mainly because out of the entire cast they were the only ones who could pull off the accent from down under, the men in 'Everest' seemed to have accents that would come and go.
What's bad about 'Everest'?
It's pretty boring. The set up is well paced especially if you're not too familiar with the 1996 disaster but the lack of character differentiation on the actual mountain climb detaches us from the characters. It's no longer Rob Hall or Scott Fischer stumbling in the snow but someone. It's a movie; surely they could have done something with the outfits to read as the perspective character? Major costume design fail in this regard as we get lost in the snow with them. Is this perhaps the point - to feel the loss? Unfortunately it only serves to detach us, emotionally, from the characters that were actually lost. And then to have the anonymous climber slowly stumble in the snow drags down the pace of the film. Sure, the climbers probably did experience hazy disorientation like this but again; this is a re-enactment not a documentary. Put some life into it. The life the filmmakers decide to inject is sentimental nonsense where we are supposed to feel tragedy as these wealthy holidaymakers die on the tallest mountain in its Death Zone - the clue is actually in the name.
The story also chose the wrong main character to follow only amplifying the attempt and sentimentality over story telling. Beck Weather (Josh Brolin) is the story and is passed off as the supporting cast (Although, another fail for the make up department. Did they even do an image search of what Beck Weather's face looked like afterwards?). Nonetheless, Jon Krakauer's (Michael Kelly) character would have even been a better central focus jumping between his book and the mountain, so why choose Rob Hall to carry the story. Because he was a father in waiting and never got the chance – this is an emotional ploy writers' William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy love to do. It's a cheap and easy shot at trying to draw out some tears. It did not yank at my ducts but pulled at my patience.
And what's ugly about 'Everest'?
Misrepresentation. If, like me, you are unfamiliar with the story and begin to research it you will find fascinating aspects about this story that are never touched on. It is plugged as the biggest tragedy on the mountain as the most people died on the mountain that day however, should they not have sent a rescue team it would have been the fourth biggest tragedy on the mountain. And not the largest tragedy from one single expedition.
Climbers of Everest are seen as adventure seekers but in reality they're wealthy people who have their stuff carried up the mountain by real mountain climbers. And the Sherpa's barely feature in the film.
Rob Hall is far more compassionate in the film than the written work of the man. From research you will see a man driven by competition, success and accolade for achievement. His highly successful 94' summit with the fail in 95' only makes his decision to push for the climb to be completed in 96', in spite of the knowledge of the weather conditions, even more believable.
Furthermore, 1996 may have taken many lives but it also had the most amount of successful summits in the history of Everest summits.
Poor Doug Hanssen (John Hawkes) even seems to take some of the blame for Rob Hall's death when research will show his cause of death as unknown.
What made this story so large is the aftermath; a book by Jon Krakauer ( a reporter on the expedition) with a rebuttal book shortly after from one of the guides, Antanoli Boukreev, helped this story gain infamy and then the rich, spoiled, socialite, reporter, Sandy Hill, did the same.
The meddling of a South African team took some blame - in the movie - because in reality the guide was actually British and the South African sponsors (and team) pulled out of the expedition because of the guide, Ian Woodall (Justin Salinger).
The film is trying too hard to make money and be successful, be polite and not place blame, and make us cry without focusing on the fact that the adventure seekers spent $65 000 a person to climb and die. It focuses on a 'western' body count tragedy not the mighty Everest and in the end is nothing but a beautiful piece of sentimental boredom. The final shot really cements the sentimentality.
150 bodies remain on that mountain today. Not just Rob Hall.
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