Everest tells the story of a 1996 attempt to summit the world’s tallest peak that went disastrously wrong.

Directed by Balthasar Kormákur, written by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy, Out Now

It centres around two rival climbing companies, Adventure Consultants, lead by Jason Clarke’s Rob Hall and Mountain Madness, lead by Jake Gyllenhaall’s Scott Fischer.  As they battle to descend from the mountain’s peak, hampered by a brutal snowstorm.

Kormákur took his cast to the real mountains in Nepal, shot them extensively climbing the Alps and, when shooting in Pinewood Studios, chilled the sound stage to blast real snow at the actors.  This is all done in an attempt to increase the realism of the film and his hard work paid off visually.  The movie looks stunning.  Salvatore Totino’s photography makes the whites of the snow look menacing.  Whilst the movie’s photography is elegant, the rest of the movie leaves more than a little to be desired. Marianelli’s score is syrupy and is often distracting.  Although the performances are all very good and the actors commit to their roles, they aren’t given much to do.  Even though we spend a lot of time with them before they begin their ascent, we frustratingly don’t really learn more about or get under the skin of the characters: most of Hall’s clients can be identified as the journalist one, the one who coughs a lot, the brash Southern one, the older experienced one so when the mountain begins to pick them off, it isn’t as affecting as it ought to be.  If this movie is anything to believe, climbing Everest is something for men to do, women must sit at Base Camp or at home on radios and phones, panic and cry.  The real heroes of Everest, the Sherpas, are brushed aside as though they aren’t hugely important to keeping the business of the mountain ticking.

Everest deals very well with the commercialisation of the mountain and amateurs’ climbing of it but it feels as though Nicholson and Beaufoy devote too much time establishing and telling us how much of a threat Everest will pose rather than letting Kormákur show us.  The movie lacks the drive and suspense of similar survival stories like 127 Hours or the climbing docudrama Touching the Void, which is a shame.

---

We hope you're enjoying BRWC. You should check us out on our social channels, subscribe to our newsletter, and tell your friends. BRWC is short for battleroyalewithcheese.

---

Trending on BRWC:

---

Cool Posts From Around the Web:

---

---