The Climb
Dir. Michael Angelo Covino / Dur. 97 mins / Country. USA
Festival Strand:- Laugh
In A Nutshell:- An episodic overview in single take scenes of the ups and downs of a friendship between two men
The Good:- Opening with a bike ride that becomes a chase due to revelations of infidelity, The Climb follows Mike and Kyle (played by real life friends and co-writers/director Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin) as they attempt to navigate their intertwined lives following this bombshell. While the buddy comedy may be tried and tested ground, there’s a refreshing feeling of honesty to this one that prevents it from seeming like more of the same. The cast are all likeable and engaging and there are some genuine laugh out loud moments in there. It’s also aware enough of the tropes of both buddy and romantic comedy to wrong foot you a few times when it seems like it’s heading in a familiar direction.
The Bad:- It’s a rare beast this one in that I can't think of anything that I didn't particularly enjoy about it. My only real criticism would be that George Wendt is in it and he’s criminally underused (come on, it’s Norm from Cheers - make the most of him!)
The Verdict:- Equal parts funny and charming with grounded and believable performances from the two main leads, this is a funny indie comedy which manages to be feelgood without being cheesy. Definitely one of the highlights of the festival for me
The Venue / Intro / Q&A:- This was at the Curzon Mayfair - my first time there and I liked it as a venue. It’s got comfortable seating with the feel of an old-school cinema. Intro and Q&A were from co-writer Kyle Marvin who talked a little bit about how the first bike-riding scene was shot as a short film and then used to get backers for a full length film. A lot of the film is shot in continuous takes which made for a challenging shoot as, if you make a mistake 9 minutes into a take, you have to reset and go back to the beginning. It also left little room for improvisation as everything had to be so tightly choreographed.
During a scene in the film where Kyle falls through the ice while ice-fishing, Kyle revealed that he actually did that for real and, given the number of takes that they did, he did it around twenty times - on one occasion being unable to act properly as his eyelids had frozen shut when he emerged! It had been fun to write about the various painful things happening to the characters but realised it was less fun when they had to act them out...
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