Jake Gyllenhaal in “Everest”.
The film reports that the body of Kiwi mountaineer Rob Hall still lies on a narrow shelf not far below the summit he had climbed five times. Hall had built a thriving business, Adventure Consultants, from the challenge. Played cheerfully by Jason Clarke, born in Winton, about as low, flat and unlikely ever to experience snow as anywhere on Earth, Hall is the film’s principal hero.
The screenplay by William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy identifies Hall as driven by responsibility to his clients, a man who would stand by a postman whose compulsion to reach the summit on his third attempt exceeded his ability to defeat the rigours of the descent. The death of Doug (John Hawkes) in the film’s main melodramatic passage as Hall struggled to get his incapacitated client safely down, even though he knew the task was impossible, is writer’s conjecture.
If the film has a bad guy, it’s Texan Beck (Josh Brolin), brash, bumptious, selfish, undisciplined, ambitious beyond his capabilities, a danger to himself and his companions, concealing a known eye condition that rendered him unfit to climb. Beck survived the frostbite sustained during the unexpected storm that developed into a blizzard on the night of May 10, 1996, but he can’t smell the roses any more and has to be hand fed.
“Everest” runs for close to two hours before its valedictions and closing credits begin. The first hour is a well-developed background of preparatory mountain and climbing passages shot in Nepal interspersed with family moments. The summit sequences were filmed in the Italian Alps and at Cinecitta Studios for the close-ups during the descent.
Is reaching the summit worth the risk and expense? The Sherpas who carry logistic support up the hill and install climbing ropes on the difficult stages and chains of ladders across the crevasses see it as a living.
Is the vertiginousness, physical discomforts and re-created grim reality of “Everest” depressing? No. Its rewarding, exciting and beautiful values more than outweigh those characteristics.
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