The Climb

Based on a short filmed in one take, The Climb is a feature-length movie conceived as a series of brief one-shot films. Though the length of the shots is justified in the opening and closing cycling scenes and contributes to the impression of fluidity, in a number of other scenes it comes across as self-serving and conversely exposes the episodic nature of the elliptical narrative with large jumps in time. The fact that some of the shots last roughly a quarter of an hour does not help to better understand the relationships between the characters, which are the main point of the film. Actors engaged in dialogue are usually shot from up close with a shallow depth of field, as is found in films with standard editing. We thus do not see what is happening in the more distant planes of the picture. Dispensing with editing is primarily an excuse for unnecessary Steadicam acrobatics. Covino doesn’t even try to achieve realism. The transitions between some chapters comprise bizarre musical numbers (in one of which the singing actors look directly into the camera) and in one of the long shots, there is both a sudden transition from day to night and a jump in time (from Thanksgiving to Christmas). These peculiarities create the illusion of sophistication, but by awkwardly varying a single narrative formula (Mike negatively affects Kyle’s life through some action or statement), the film tells the banal story of the friendship of slightly eccentric protagonists and male self-pity that we have seen in a more well-though-out form in many other American indie films. 60% (30.12.2020)