Free Solo (2018)
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Free Solo Movie Review
Free Solo is a 2018 documentary film directed by Jimmy Chin and starring Alex Honnold. It’s a very good, but flawed look into an important subject matter.
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“Let’s hope for a low-gravity day“
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Alex Honnold is a free solo climber and the movie follows his quest to be the first person ever to climb El Capitan. And they actually went out and filmed him doing the feat which was interesting and groundbreaking in a way for documentary features.
I have personally always considered these types of people crazy more than inspirational and I am happy to say that the movie somewhat agrees with me. This is a different type of documentary which doesn’t glorify this man, but actually tries to find out why he’s doing this.
He’s very aloof emotionally speaking and that’s why he does this as he did not have the greatest family growing up and he simply never learned to communicate his feelings and thus he’s rather empty inside and needs to compensate by climbing and doing these impossible feats.
I personally still found Alex Honnold way too unsympathetic for my personal taste which is why the story did not move me as much. I get that I should feel sympathy and even pity for him, but he’s too unlikable to gain major pity points from me.
He’s way too unsympathetic and uncaring towards his girlfriend and she’s crazy to be putting up with him as are all the other partners of these particular extreme sports folk. I did like that they showcased the girlfriend and what she’s going through, but still I wanted an even bigger emphasis on the inner turmoil in both of them and what drives him to do this.
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Free Solo has a problem in that its filmed ascent isn’t as epic or as intense as it should have been. It’s thrilling, don’t get me wrong, but it just wasn’t as spectacular as I hoped it would be. But still the documentary is gorgeously shot, it goes into much needed detail when it comes to the climbing activity and I liked all of the conversations and interviews in it and I wanted more of them. It doesn’t deserve Oscar praise in the great year for the medium with ‘They Shall Not Grow Old’ and ‘Three Identical Strangers’, but it’s still very good.
Free Solo isn’t as intense in its final scenes as I expected, but it’s still beautifully shot and it explores free solo climbing really well. I wanted even more depth from it, but it’s nonetheless a rare documentary which doesn’t glorify the man, but actually tries to understand why he’s doing this through some revelatory interviews and great points of view.
