New movie review: Everest

Director Baltasar Kormakur's stunning new film Everest is a gripping exploration of the folly of man and the power of nature.

Hubris and boredom are really two sides of the same coin. Humanity has come a long way since it came down from the trees, and the evidence of that journey is obvious if we take even a second to consider the world around us. The seemingly never-ending advancement of technology gives the impression we can do pretty much anything, but by the same token, it means we rarely have to do anything. A vast majority of us will never till the land or hunt wild game in any meaningful way. By virtue of living in a mostly successful society, our needs are met.

These twin experiences of believing we can accomplish anything and having too much time on our hands mean feats such as scaling Mount Everest hold a strange place in our collective psyche. Nobody needs to climb Everest, but we applaud those who do. We stand in awe of the men and women who risk their lives to reach the highest peak on our planet. It is foolhardy at best and suicidal at worst, but every year, more and more people head to the top of the world, and the best explanation anyone seems to have comes from a British explorer who died trying: “Because it’s there.”

Jason Clarke plays Rob Hall in Everest.

The new film Everest explores the varying motivations of a group of climbers that participated in the 1996 expedition that proved the deadliest ever at the time – it was surpassed just last year in a tragic avalanche that killed 16 and this year in a series of avalanches that killed at least 19. If you are familiar with the popular Jon Krakauer book Into Thin Air, then you will be familiar with the basics of the story. However, director Baltasar Kormákur and screenwriters William Nicholson and Simon Beaufoy smartly cull their material from multiple sources, giving a broader view of the tragedy.

While the film is a true ensemble piece, the screenplay goes to great lengths to examine the individuals that make up that ensemble. There is Rob Hall (Jason Clarke), a professional climber and the leader of the expedition who has a pregnant wife, Jan (Keira Knightly), at home. There is Doug Hansen (John Hawkes), a mailman out to prove to the schoolchildren back home what a regular guy can accomplish. Beck Weathers (Josh Brolin) is a wealthy Texan who feels most alive when he is climbing.

Yasuko Namba (Naoko Mori) is a Japanese woman who has reached six of the seven highest peaks in the world, and Everest is the seventh. Scott Fischer (Jake Gyllenhaal) is another professional climber who loves the thrill of it all. Even Krakauer (Michael Kelly) appears in the film. All these characters and more are carefully detailed early in the story, which gives later developments more emotional impact than most big action-adventure movies. Because we care about the individuals, we care about the group.

Clarke is essentially the lead of the film, and he does fantastic work in a harrowing role that is both physically demanding and emotionally exhausting. Hall states repeatedly through the film it is his job to take his clients to the top of Everest and bring them back down safely. He takes his work seriously, and when disaster strikes, he takes the ensuing tragedy personally. Clarke is careful not to play Hall as heroic but as a regular guy – albeit eminently skilled and incredibly brave – who makes his living in extraordinary circumstances, and the movie benefits from this portrayal.

Josh Brolin plays Beck Weathers in Everest.

In contrast to Hall, there is Weathers, who is full of Texas swagger and the kind of bravado that money seems to buy. Early in the film, after almost dying on an ice ladder, Weathers complains to Hall he did not pay $65,000 to wait in line for the ladder. His transformation on the mountain is the clearest in the film, and Brolin is expert at showing Weathers as simultaneously full of confidence and full of fear. The moment he realizes the price of feeling alive may be to die on the mountain is beautiful, and Brolin plays it perfectly.

Everest is unusual and refreshing in its dedication to character work. Many adventure and disaster films of this type hide behind spectacle, backgrounding the story and foregrounding impressive, if narratively empty, visuals. In the rare instance a film does try to examine character, it often comes across as clunky (Gravity) or undercooked (Interstellar). Everest manages both feats, telling a compelling story with grace and subtlety and wowing the audience with a stunning visual landscape.

In fact, stunning may be too light a word. I know many people who are happy with their home-theater systems – a high-definition, big-screen television and a great surround-sound system in the comfort of home. That is fine. Even as a proponent of going to the cinema, I am willing to admit there are certain movies that play well enough at home. This is not one of them. There is nothing in the movie-watching universe that will match the majesty of seeing Everest on the big screen – in IMAX (real IMAX), if possible.

Kormákur does not have an extensive resume, and if you know him from anything, it is probably one of his collaborations with Mark Wahlberg, either Contraband or 2 Guns, but his craftsmanship here is masterful. Mount Everest is an alien world right here on Earth, and Kormákur deftly evokes that feeling, giving us endless expanses of broken, jagged rock, impossibly deep crevices, and blinding snow whipping around constantly. Wide shots of distant figures trudging up the mountainside help emphasize humanity’s insignificance against the awe-inspiring power of nature.

Everest was here long before us, and it will remain long after we are gone. Humanity can cure disease, make art, and build flying machines that take us to outer space, and yes, we can even summit Everest, but we could never create it. Everest is a testament to something beyond human achievement. It is a tribute to the unconquerable state of the natural world. If the film reminds us of anything, it is this: We may stand on the mountain’s peak, but we will never reach its heights.

See it? Yes.

Countdown to the Oscars: Best Supporting Actress

Patricia Arquette is nominated for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Boyhood.

Each day as we make our way to the Academy Awards ceremony Feb. 22, Last Cinema Standing will take an in-depth look at each of the categories, sorting out the highs, the lows, and everything in between. Check back right here for analysis, predictions, and gripes as we inch toward the Dolby Theater and that world-famous red carpet.

Best Supporting Actress

The nominees are:

Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

Emma Stone for Birdman

Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game

Meryl Streep for Into the Woods

Laura Dern for Wild

Three mothers, a daughter, and a colleague – those are the characters portrayed by the five women nominated for Best Supporting Actress, not exactly a full range of human experiences, but look closer. Among those you have an all-powerful witch, a strong, resilient teacher, and a brilliant mathematician. Now things are starting to look a little better.

With good reason, the topic of quality roles for women comes up constantly in the Oscar season and beyond. Undoubtedly, there are too few female-led films, too few stories told about the great women throughout history – or even the not-so-great women. More roles, however, do not necessarily mean better roles. What we need are more parts for women that are as deep, complex, and emotionally rich as their male counterparts. That will be progress.

Not all of the nominees for Best Supporting Actress this year fit that mold, which is a shame, considering how many great performances were left on the sidelines in favor of these. However, the two roles here that do require depth and soul are two of the best characters of the year and feature two of the best performances. These are all great actresses, and with the right material, each is capable of delivering stunning work, as proven by the two actresses here who were given some of the best material of the year. Hopefully, the best material keeps coming to all of them.

Patricia Arquette for Boyhood – There is a way of reading Boyhood wherein Arquette is the film’s lead, and I do not think anyone would have blinked had she been nominated in the Best Actress category. While the film ostensibly concerns the coming of age of a young Texas boy, Arquette plays the woman who raises that boy while at the same time figuring out the person she wants to be. Most parents who see the film instantly identify with Arquette’s struggle as she bounces around from being a single mother to an abused wife to a single mother again, all while striving to do what is best for her children.

Arquette comes from an acting family, and she has been in the Hollywood game almost 30 years. She spent 12 of those years making Boyhood. The dedication alone is enough to impress, but the awards success she has already seen for the film goes deeper than that. Reflecting back on Boyhood, it is her character and her journey that stand out as pivotal to the film.

Writer-director Richard Linklater and Arquette collaborate to make the character more than a mom. She is a wife, a lover, a student, and a teacher. She is a real person with real regrets and real fears about where her choices in life are taking her and where they have brought her. When she wonders aloud toward the end of the film what dedicating her life to her children has brought her, we cannot shame her for feeling that. We can only empathize with a woman who has given so much in life and received so little.

Emma Stone for Birdman – Sam, as played by Stone, is the voice of her generation, but it is not meant to be a flattering portrayal. As washed-up actor Riggan Thompson’s (Michael Keaton) daughter, Sam is all self-absorption and self-importance. She has an answer for questions she has not yet been asked and opinions on topics about which she knows nothing. She is the social media culture incarnate and a dire warning for where a generation raised on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube may be headed.

Stone is perfect in the role, bringing the energy and anger of youth with a hint of deeply buried vulnerability. About midway through the film, Stone delivers a monologue so brutal and so cutting that it threatens to take the character beyond the point of redemption, but with the subtlest change in her facial expression, Stone brings us back around, if not to her side, then to the middle. Wordlessly, she expresses regret about her tirade but resolutely refuses to admit she may have been wrong. It is a moment that relies entirely on the actress’ face, and Stone nails it.

Meryl Streep for Into the Woods – You all know Meryl Streep. You know what she has accomplished – three Academy Awards and 19 nominations, more than any other actor in history. She has tried everything and been everybody – a factory worker, a prime minister, a singer, a druggie, an adventurer, and a nun, among countless other roles. She is a legend who could show up to work and earn a nomination for her safe driving, if such an organization existed to hand out awards. Ultimately, that is part of the problem.

Streep is good in the part of the witch. There is no denying it, but the kneejerk reaction to Streep piling on the makeup or putting on an accent is to nominate her for an award. I am saying that should probably stop. If Academy members really think this performance, this year, is one of the five best performances by an actress in a supporting role, they need to see more movies. Royalty is royalty. The prize is being such. We do not need to weigh her down with more accolades just for showing up, donning a wig, and belting out a few songs, however ably. Let’s think outside the box once in a while.

Keira Knightley for The Imitation Game – Not yet 30 years old, Knightley is a two-time nominee who has shown a facility for transitioning from epic blockbusters to period dramas to low-budget indies. In 2014 alone, she appeared in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit, The Imitation Game, and Begin Again. She is an immensely talented actresses with many years of strong characters and great performances ahead of her. The Imitation Game, however, will hopefully be just a footnote to her career.

As capable as Knightley is, she is given little to do as Joan Clarke, Alan Turing’s (Benedict Cumberbatch) colleague, wife, and confidante. Though we are briefly shown Clark’s talent for mathematics and code breaking, the film serves as an ode to the greatness of Turing. As such, Clark is written merely as another character to stand in awe of Turing and bear witness to his greatness. Knightley does her best, but she is hamstrung by a part that as written, lacks complexity or emotional depth.

Laura Dern for Wild – Speaking of good actresses with minimal characters to play, Dern makes little more than a couple cameo appearances in Wild, despite being the whole reason for the story. Dern plays Bobbi, Cheryl Strayed’s (Reese Witherspoon) mother. We see her only in flashbacks as Strayed hikes up the Pacific Crest Trail. We learn more about Bobbi from Strayed’s voiceovers and conversations with other people than we do in the precious little screen time Dern actually has.

Some of this is due to the script and some is due to director Jean-Marc Vallée’s impressionistic style, which requires that actors in small roles have a big impact. Vallée has cast the right actress for the task in Dern, but her passivity only serves to undercut any strength Dern would have brought to the part. The character mostly serves as a sounding board for Witherspoon’s more assertive Strayed. None of this is to say Dern’s performance is bad, but awards worthy it is not.

The final analysis

When it comes to the win, there is Arquette and no one else. She has won every conceivable precursor award, including from the Screen Actors Guild, the Golden Globes, and the British Academy of Film and Television. She will win the Oscar in a walk, and it will be as much for her performance in Boyhood as for a lifetime of turning in strong work in film and on television. She is a deserving actress, and I look forward to her acceptance speech.

Will win: Patricia Arquette for Boyhood

Should win: Emma Stone for Birdman

Wish she had been here: Katherine Waterston for Inherent Vice

New movie review: The Imitation Game

Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing in the new biopic The Imitation Game.

Interested is interesting. It is an old line of advice parents give their children on how to make friends. The logic is sound for meeting people, but it is almost incorruptibly true when applied to storytelling. The problem with the new Alan Turing biopic The Imitation Game is that it just does not seem very interested in its characters or really even in the story it is telling. As a result, it is only intermittently interesting.

On its surface, there is little to dislike in director Morten Tyldum’s handsomely mounted World War II picture. It is charming, well acted, and suitably dramatic. It has the veneer of prestige, but beneath that, there is precious little substance, which is a shame. Turing’s life is rife with cinematic possibilities, stuffed with intrigue, sorrow, and inspiration. All the makings of a great old Hollywood picture are there, something akin to The Life of Emile Zola, if we want to reach back a ways.

Sadly, few of these possibilities are explored. Late in the film, an authority figure, remarking on the death of a character, says, “He faced it with a stiff upper lip” – that classic indicator of British austerity. One cannot help but feel the filmmakers approached the material in the same way. Tragedy lurks in every corner of the story, but the film remains posh and aloof, somehow floating above it.

To the film’s credit, it never gets bogged down in self-seriousness. First-time feature screenwriter Graham Moore infuses the script with humor and humanity, and what easily could become a history lesson is never less than entertaining. It is a crowd-pleaser of the highest order, but if you have not been to the movies in a while, there is something you should know: Crowd-pleasers are a dime a dozen. If you wish to be pleased – and I am not saying there is anything wrong with that – there are any number of suitable movies from which to choose, including this one. However, if you wish to be challenged, look elsewhere.

Coincidentally, there is another crowd-pleasing British film in theaters right now about a brilliant scientist and his difficult life – The Theory of Everything. One could be forgiven for walking into this feature and realizing, “Darn it! I wanted the one with Stephen Hawking.” The other, more troubling trait both films share is a distinct lack of interest in exploring the world-changing feats these men accomplished.

Throughout The Imitation Game, we are told the machine Turing is working on will win the war if he is successful. He is building the first computer with the goal of cracking the German Enigma machine, an encryption device the Germans used to pass coded messages. If the machine is cracked, it will give the Allies a clear advantage, but despite efforts by the Americans and Russians, no one had been able to solve the puzzle. Enter Turing.

Rather than show the process of his work, though, the film settles for constantly reminding the audience Turing is a genius. We see him scribble furiously, but instead of an exploration of his scribbles, we are treated to numerous exchanges in which the probably autistic Turing does not understand basic human interactions. These are fun to watch but are no substitute for understanding the man and his particular brilliance.

Benedict Cumberbatch, of TV’s Sherlock and thus well versed in playing prickly geniuses, is great as Turing. As an actor, Cumberbatch is capable of explosive bursts of energy and tremendous feats of physicality, but he uses none of that here. In fact, the most physical we ever see him is during his morning jog. Turing is a man whose mind does the heavy lifting, and Cumberbatch portrays this with little more than a shift in his eyes or a twitch in his mouth. It is a brave, emotionally complex portrayal of a difficult and complicated historical figure.

Matthew Goode and Keira Knightly perform admirably in the parts of Turing’s friends and co-conspirators, but neither is given enough to do. While it is always fun to see Charles Dance on screen – you may recognize him as Tywin Lannister on Game of Thrones – he has the thankless role of playing “the authority figure who stands in the hero’s way.”

Dance is good, but the character is a microcosm of what is wrong with this movie. The filmmakers seem to believe it is not enough to watch a smart man do important work. He needs obstacles and conflict, as though the war alone will not suffice. Turing faced myriad challenges in his life and overcame a great many of them, but a superior who does not understand his work is probably the least among them.

Strangely structured, to say the least, Turing narrates his war record while we are treated to other flashbacks of his life, as well as a police investigation into Turing’s post-war affairs. The three timelines are juggled to somewhat muted effect. The end goal seems to be to induce guilt for the treatment of war hero Turing, who was persecuted for his homosexuality, a crime in mid-20th century England. The shift to a kind of gay rights narrative is handled deftly and carries appropriate weight, but it comes so late in the story that it does not land with the impact it otherwise might, much like the rest of the proceedings.

I have no doubt of the filmmakers’ good intentions, but the storytelling often feels perfunctory, coasting on the cultural cache of Turing’s accomplishments and World War II. These are impressive figures doing a critical job at one of the most crucial moments in world history. Their story is inherently interesting – if only the film had been a little more interested.

See it? Yes.