Spoilers
Synopsis:
Kyle and Mike are best friends who share a close bond – until Mike sleeps with Kyle’s fiancée. The Climb is about a tumultuous but enduring relationship between two men across many years of laughter, heartbreak and rage. It is also the story of real-life best friends who turn their profound connection into a rich, humane and frequently uproarious film about the boundaries (or lack thereof) in all close friendships. {IMDB}
First I want to point out a few things about this movie the first is that the cinematography is superb and it closely mimics the style of 1917 with long takes and hidden cuts throughout the film.
The Climb piqued my interest with its trailer which depicted the twists and turns of the long term friendship of Mike and Kyle. The Climb is a a poetically laced flick with pushes and pulls of the heart throughout the story of best friends Mike and Kyle. This movie has a lot of charm and creative displays of life’s serendipity and dramatic moments such as sudden deaths and wedding objections. I thought this film brought everything required to construct a successful romantic comedy flick with its main course being a bromance story of a marred friendship.
I got invested in the relationship between Mike and Kyle right away because of how their personalities complemented each other Mike is a natural athlete and a fighter and Kyle is a selfless, hopeless romantic, but they are both bros to the bone. Kyle has more of the family oriented qualities of a man who can start a family and Mike is about the bachelor life and a go-getter and their friendship not only gets strained but completely dismantles and recovers from nothing throughout this film in dramatic ways.
I think the dramatic Peaks and valleys of this film complemented and took away from its overall value because the gravity of the dramatic scenes tended to one-up each other throughout the film and the issue with that is that was a task that was not easy to continue all the way to the end of the film. The plot line is strung along by Kyle’s new and old love interests and Mike is the glue that holds together their unstable friendship. Beautifully shot and choreographed extra long scenes make The Climb’s family scenes of shock and awe that much more palpable and fun. A lot of the entertainment value comes from questions left unanswered between Mike and Kyle, whether he slept with Kyle’s love interests or not and this film does a fantastic job of flip-flopping Mike’s behavior. Mikes character arc fights a man in the beginning and gets injured after he tells Kyle that he slept with his fiancé and by the second act Kyle has a second love interest who Mike tries to sleep with again and does but it’s in a different way because Mike warns Kyle that she’s not the right one for him and and he turned out to be right. At the end he gets challenged by somebody and totally gives up and does not fight at all and so there’s a maturity between Mike growing up a little bit and Kyle understanding that he doesn’t need a wife and Kyle and Mike’s Bike trips continue on through a fascinating Arc. The climax scene in this film, is possibly it’s lowest point.
During the wedding when Mike pulls up and does a grand gesture to stop the wedding and essentially what happens is the film comes to a screeching halt and the characters become paper thin soap opera plot twist dispensers. And then the film that has been typically long uncut scenes smash cuts to the end of the film with Kyle packing his bags in a divorce that feels like a resolution only to a blind man because the tension is completely gone and there is no questions left unanswered though the entertainment value in the payoff was anticlimactic even though it was over dramatic.
The Climb is a cheerful humorous Bromance about Mike and Kyle’s rise and fall in between their life’s experiences. a film that draws oneself in with it’s promise of a true to life story about two friends and possibly an endearing message. I expected the film to be a fun and heartfelt tale imbued with a deep message, however this take on a bromance story ultimately fell flat because of its over the top dramatic moments that snapped the interesting twine throughout the film like nothing and ended on a wrong note. I admit this film was a fun watch though it ultimately blew the endearing message or any message it was trying to convey because the climactic scene was anything but. This film delicately balanced the revolving door of Kyles lovers with Mikes chasing of them and the climactic scene had too much revealing shocks that manipulated the tone of nuanced family turmoil to an over the top dramatic film that stopped taking itself seriously.
Interesting story, Fantastic cinematography, tonal changes that took away it’s value
Popcorn Movie | 6/10 |
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