Review: The Climb

Image courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics.

For a low budget indie drama featuring two unknowns in the leads, Michael Angelo Covino's "The Climb" is a very funny, occasionally moving, well written and often visually adventurous picture. The film - which chronicles the toxic friendship between two average men over a period of years - features long-held shots and some impressive camera moves, but rather than making its visual elements the focal point, the picture is mostly driven by its performances and the dialogue between its characters.

The film opens on a continuous shot of two men - Kyle (Kyle Marvin) and Michael (Covino, who acts as director and co-writer of the movie with Marvin) - riding bikes up a mountain somewhere in France. The two men are abroad for Kyle's wedding to Ava (Judith Godreche), a French woman, and it's obvious that while Mike is an expert at cycling, Kyle is, well, not so much.

Therefore, it's not until Mike is well ahead of Kyle on the steep incline on which they're peddling that he decides to break some bad news - he has slept with Ava, not just in the past, but even recently. The men's friendship, not surprisingly, takes a dive, and it's not until some time later that they meet again due to tragic circumstances, although a funeral scene quickly devolves into something quirkier involving a fight between Michael and a gravedigger over a union-related issue and an a cappella performance by a group of men.

As time passes, Michael's life falls apart - he drinks too much, he's aimless and seemingly friendless. When he next meets up with Kyle, who is faring better, it's at Kyle's family's Christmas party, where Kyle breaks the news to his disappointed family that he plans to marry Marissa (Gayle Rankin), his girlfriend, whom no member of the family - which includes two sisters and a mother and father played by Talia Balsam and George Wendt - appears to like.

Michael shows up drunk and makes a fool of himself, but not before Kyle's mother gives him a lecture about how one can be a good friend merely by thinking of others' needs before acting selfishly in the name of one's own desires. Several other meet-ups occur between the two men - an ice fishing bachelor party for Kyle that nearly turns tragic, a wedding interruption obviously inspired by "The Graduate," a drunken New Year's Eve celebration in which Michael nearly screws up the friendship again (although he appears to be doing it for reasons he considers more munificent) and several others.

Michael's character can be obnoxious - he's the screwup friend who everyone wants to do better, but rarely does. Kyle, on the other hand, has his own share of flaws - he's easily led, whether it's by Michael or Marissa (who wants Kyle to disassociate himself from his family because they don't like her) - and Kyle even admits, when pressed by Marissa as to why he loves her, that he's in need of someone to give him direction.

"The Climb" is a very well made, often quite funny and even somewhat moving film about two flawed people who see each other very clearly - warts and all - and decide to stick together over a period of years, on the one hand, out of a sense of loyalty, but also because they know each other in a way that others don't know them. 

It features a number of intense moments - but not in the typical way you might expect. The film's multiple heart-to-heart sequences and numerous moments in which we see characters acting in ways that aren't good for themselves or others ring true in an often hilarious, real world manner.

"The Climb" isn't just very good due to its impressive visual style, strong performances, writing or humorous set pieces, but also because we can recognize someone we've likely once known in its lead characters in a way that feels authentic. The two frenemies at its heart are, arguably, bad for each other, but rely and depend on each other in a way that makes "The Climb" engrossing. The film was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival - and it's easy to see why.