I didn’t know what type of film I was getting myself into when queueing up The Climb, the newest release from Sony Pictures Classics. Judging by the key art, I thought it was going to be a buddy-comedy about cyclist friends who exchange witty, occasionally profound musings about life captured along lovely vistas.
In the best way possible, The Climb is not that film. It’s arguably the funniest, and one of my very favorite, films of the year.
The title of the film doesn’t exactly relay what this movie is about, although it is accurate in what happens: two buddies move through adult life in a Sisyphean manner. It’s a deadpan buddy comedy that dips into the surreal and absurd, with real filmmaking finesse.
The Climb tells the story of these two friends–Kyle (Kyle Marvin) and Michael (Michael Angelo Covino)–whose relationship can at best be described as toxic. They undermine each other’s lives in fully conscious ways. As the film opens, Kyle gets engaged and Michael confesses to having slept with his fianceé. Some time and another engagement later, the friends find themselves in similar territory.
More so than ‘The Climb’ being a hilarious film, and one of my favorite new releases of the year, it’s also the arrival of a new comedic duo that I can’t wait to see what they do next.
And yet what The Climb shows is that they have a bond so unquestioned, like toddlers, that their terrible behavior is seen as earnest and sorrowful. And it’s exacted with meta-awareness, adding to their deadpan, dopey charisma, which makes their low-wattage reaction and reconciling of life events hilarious. To make matters funnier, this pares with moments where the film glides into the absurd, where impromptu musical sequences surprised me with such delight. As the film went on (it’s broken up into chapters), I continued to enjoy this movie, and couldn’t wait to recommend it to my friends.
And while The Climb stars two dim-witted dudes, it’s also a movie made with real cinematic skills, pulled off behind the camera by the very dudes in front of it. Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin also wrote and produced the film, with the former getting director credit.
While The Climb is my exact type of comedy–deadpan and dipping into the surreal–it’s also a comedy that has real cinematic skills: most of the film is comprised of incredibly directed single-take sequences of slowly unfolding scenes (that give off a measured pace and sense of calm that runs counter to the unexpected comedy that arises).
More so than The Climb being just a hilarious film and one of my favorite releases of the year, it’s also the arrival of a new comedic duo that I can’t wait to see what they do next.
98 min. ‘The Climb’ is rated R for language, sexual content, some nudity, and brief drug use. Now playing in theaters.
