Coastal View News
As the weary yet spirited climbers, who are just days away
from attempting the ultimate feat in mountaineering, crowd around in their tent
for some merriment, conversation, and booze, journalist Jon Krakauer (Michael
Kelly) asks them: “Why?” Why do it? Why climb Mount Everest?”
Indeed. Why? After a few hems and haws, one climber offers
the standard, “Cuz it’s there!” Another climber says he is doing it for a group
of kids—to show them that an ordinary guy can do extraordinary things. A third
later says he feels depressed at home, but not on the mountain.
These are real answers—after all, the movie is based on real
events with real climbers—and they are normal, perfectly O.K. answers. But I
don’t think they do any sort of justice to how great the question is. Why climb
Everest? Given the costs (both financial and otherwise) and risks (which this
movie illustrates nicely), it is a wonder that anyone—let alone droves of
people—would risk it all to climb a mountain, which plenty of others have already
climbed, just to turn around come right back down.
But people do silly things all the time. And most of us are
not at all inclined to think that climbing Everest is silly. So the real reason
the “Why do it?” question is super interesting is precisely because, despite
all the terrific reasons to ask it, it doesn’t really have a grip on us. The
answer, as inarticulable and arational as it may be, somehow just seems
obvious. Of course you climb Everest!
Thus the ever-adventurous, ever-helpful Rob Hall (Jason
Clarke) and his band of amateur (albeit experienced) climbers—clients of his
expedition company—head for the top. There is the soft-spoken Doug Hansen (John
Hawkes), who never complains, even when he is struggling. There is the
loud-mouthed Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin), a brash Texan eager to buy a one-way
ticket to glory. Then there is Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal), a free spirited
pro up for anything; Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori), who has already climbed seven
of the eight highest peaks; and Krakauer, a journalist looking for both a good
story and an adventure. They all head to the top to achieve greatness.
Then the storm comes. The wind howls, the snow drives
through rock and ice and climber alike, and the darkness overtakes them. Hope
is lost, then regained, then lost again. What happens does not just effect
those frozen to the side of the mountain. It imperils many more—daughters
without fathers, wives without husbands, kids without someone to look up to—and
threatens to coat all of those involved in a permanent layer of thick, dull,
gray ice.
So, again, why do it? Why climb Everest in the first place? Does
this question become more vivid—more pressing—when it becomes clear what is at
stake? Do we see the question in a new light once lives have been lost or
irreparably altered? I am not sure.
“Everest” is an interesting blend of gleeful adventure and
soul-stomping tragedy. Though it falls victim to a few inexplicable storytelling
gaffes, it is pretty well acted, and remains compelling throughout.
But real test for a movie like this is whether it sticks
with you in your gut—whether it keeps you up at night. This movie does. Or it
kept me up, and has stuck with me. There is something deeply unsettling about
“Everest”, and I like to think that the tragedy is more than just “one of those
things that happens”. It makes you wonder whether “greatness” is worth risking
so much that is good in living.
