Everest

Image: www.everestthemovie.com.au 

During the climbing season of 1996, experienced trekkers and curious tourists alike flocked to the Himalayas to try to scale the world’s tallest peak. Accessible high-altitude exploits lead by experienced guides had become a burgeoning industry, with Adventure Consultants one of the company’s flourishing from the commercialisation of the tough feat of skill and endurance. That year’s effort to reach the summit would live on in history for all the wrong reasons, inclement weather causing tragedy. It is this tale the plainly named Everest tells as it retraces the steps of those lured in by a sense of awe but left in the shadows of one of the planet’s most simultaneously striking and threatening natural wonders.

So it is that Adventure Consultants’ Rob Hall (Jason Clarke, Terminator Genisys) bids farewell to his pregnant wife, Jan Arnold (Keira Knightley, The Imitation Game), as he heads from New Zealand to Nepal with fellow climbers Andy Harris (Martin Henderson, Devil’s Knot) and Guy Cotter (Sam Worthington, Kidnapping Mr. Heineken), and his base camp coordinator, Helen Wilton (Emily Watson, A Royal Night Out), by his side. Upon their arrival, they endeavour to train and direct paying clients — including mailman and second-timer Doug Hansen (John Hawkes, Life of Crime), determined Texan Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin, Inherent Vice), journalist Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly, TV’s House of Cards), and Japanese woman Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori, Absolutely Fabulous), who will complete all seven summits with her trek — to tackle and conquer the tough terrain. Come May 10th, as the group prepares for their final ascent, the stormy elements have other plans. 

Everest may take audiences to the unstable heights of its titular mountain, but it does so from a solid foundation that starts with its high-profile cast. Whether placed front and centre, such as the resolute and understanding Clarke, the brash Brolin and the sweetly ambitious Hawkes, or used more sparingly in the form of Jake Gyllenhaal’s (Southpaw) relaxed rival guide, the performers flesh out their real-life characters more than the material allows for otherwise. Knightley and Robin Wright (A Most Wanted Man), also playing a partner left at home, similarly typify this approach. The pain and anguish both actresses convey exceeds the brief screen time and thin roles they’re given; in bigger parts, Worthington, Henderson and Watson also add depth and emotion to what could’ve been rote supporting turns.

Accordingly, slowly and meticulously building a portrait of a tense, terrifying, life-or-death situation is where Everest excels, sometimes despite the film’s clear favouring of incident and spectacle over smaller moments. Director Baltasar Kormákur (2 Guns) and writers William Nicholson (Unbroken) and Simon Beaufoy (The Hunger Games: Catching Fire) each happily adhere to the disaster movie formula, littering a sliver of foreboding dialogue here and a shot of the formidable environment there; however the gripping human story of striving and struggling against all odds that lurks beneath can’t be shaken.

The 3D visuals, teetering towards 29,029 feet above sea level and using as many vertigo-inducing vantages as cinematographer Salvatore Totino (Made in America) can muster, certainly try to ensure the audience’s focus falls on the characters’ surroundings. People are repeatedly dwarfed by walls of rock, ice and snow to augment the danger that never leaves the film, even for those cognisant of the outcome. A soundscape filled with the expected rustling wind also haunts, and also reinforces the feature’s obvious key player: the mountain itself. That’s where Everest finds its surest, sturdiest base in an offering assured of its path but sometimes uncertain of its footing, chronicling the attempted achievement it inspires, and the heartbreaking catastrophe it inflicts.

Rating: 3 stars out of 5

Everest

Director: Baltasar Kormákur
USA | UK | Iceland, 2015, 121 mins
Release date: September 17
Distributor: Universal
Rated: M