A sober and unsentimental account of the 1996 Mount Everest tragedy
A sober and unsentimental account of the 1996 Mount Everest tragedy. Capturing the awe and terror of the world's highest mountain with heart-stopping intensity, director Baltasar Kormákur's movie puts us in the crampons of the climbers caught up in the disaster and it's utterly gripping - even if you have prior knowledge of the fates of the two rival expeditions on which it focuses, led by Jason Clarke's rugged New Zealander Rob Hall and Jake Gyllenhaal's laid-back American Scott Fischer. Their clients are another study in contrasts and include brash Texan millionaire Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), diffident postman Doug Hansen (John Hawkes) and single-minded author Jon Krakauer (Michael Kelly). What the climbers go through when they're trapped by a blizzard is truly harrowing, but the film steers clear of melodrama and the usual disaster movie clichés to convey their ordeal with bone-chilling immediacy. As the wind whips and howls around the summit, you really do feel you are there on the mountain - and desperately thankful that you are not. Meanwhile, base camp manager Helen Wilton (Emily Watson), mission doctor Caroline Mackenzie (Elizabeth Debicki), Hall’s pregnant wife Jan Arnold (Keira Knightley) and Weathers’ no-nonsense spouse Peach (a near-unrecognisable Robin Wright) helplessly wait as the tragedy unfolds.
