Michael Angelo Covino's The Climb is intricate in its simplicity; it opens on a long stretch of time where, at a glance, little happens outside of two cyclists having a conversation. But the camera never cuts away, the actors don't miss a single beat, and the emotions grow tenser and tenser as a revelation is made and other parts of the film's universe begin to interact with their uninterrupted ride.
Lengthy takes are not inherently an impressive feature, of course. I often argue that artists like Harmony Korine and Matthew Barney might fancy themselves worthy of Jodorowsky, Buñuel, or Brakhage just because they emulate the "weirdness", not realizing that those filmmakers translated legitimate ideas into eccentric surrealism and didn't just hope surrealism by itself would eventually "say something" (more on that in a future post). Similarly, someone like Gus Van Zant may have thought he was the next Tarkovsky, Kubrick, or Tarr because he made a really dang slow movie once. The Climb is hardly so thoughtless.
One of many 2019 films that I missed for my end-of-the-year retrospective, its delayed wide release allows me to cheat a little and praise it as one of the 2020 greats. Of course, COVID was unkind enough to the film as it is, but the fact that Googling the title mainly yields results for a Miley Cyrus song is the cherry on top - originality is harder and harder to find.
We meet Kyle and Mike (writer Kyle Marvin; writer-director Covino) and watch as their once-tight friendship begins to change upon the discovery that one has been sleeping with the other's fiancee. There are several uninterrupted scenes like the one I described above; lengthy takes where things subtly escalate, as the characters grow more uncomfortable (as do the eventual extras) and the camera shifts its perspective in meticulous but not excessively noticeable ways.
There is a particularly uncomfortable party scene where there are even more moving cogs and ongoing subplots (many involving a superb Gayle Rankin as "the new girlfriend"), yet everything within the take is still flawlessly coordinated - even the family dog is on cue! I adored this movie the way I did last year's Climax, but that one managed to descend all the way to madness while still being well-choreographed.
"Uncomfortable" is a good word - the film is a prime example of both cringe comedy (Boy, does it get darkly humourous at points!) and just plain awkwardness. The story is well-told and keeps you guessing as to what will go wrong next, who will get cut, by whom, and how deep. The writing, grooming, costuming, and acting do wonders to let us know a substantial amount of time has passed between two given scenes; we can see these people are barely who they used to be.
Without giving too much away, I will say that The Climb is quite an ironic title (then again, a climb doesn't strictly need to involve "going up"). You will find yourself in the pits if you watch it, but you will almost certainly admire the experience on a technical level - subdued as it may look next to a Hollywood spectacle or in-your-face buddy comedy. This isn't just about two friends; it's about friendship, and the things we must question about the connections we find. But on the other hand, if reducing the film to "bros vs. hoes and also there's alcohol" ensures more people will see it... Is the top result still the Miley song?
When talking about the World War I drama 1917, some critics have cited The Climb as a superior example of shooting impressively long takes, not only because 1917 used VFX to conceal its cuts and so maintain the "single take" illusion. While I enjoyed 1917, which is more epic in scale and would've been impossible to nail in one go, few things compare to the real deal.
