At the 2018 Sundance Film Festival, Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin did a short film called
The Climb (2018) about two friends on a bike ride. A year later, they turned that short film into a feature. The trick of the short film was that it was done all in one, continuous take. There was no editing. It was just an unbroken shot that was about 8 minutes long, and it was all done while Covino and Marvin as actors were riding bicycles up a hill. For the feature, they re-create that trick, basically re-creating that bike ride scene. After that scene, the rest of the film is a series of six, other scenes that also mimic that same trick. The other six scenes are all done as one, continuous take. None of the other scenes are arguably as physically strenuous as the two guys riding bikes up a steep hill, but they do require the actors, sometimes a large cast of actors, to perform those scenes as if doing a live stage play without stopping or much editing.
Films like Birdman (2014) have shown that with the help of digital editing those kinds of scenes can be done with some stopping or editing, so maybe the trick isn't really one of physical stamina on behalf of the actors. Maybe it's just a matter of digital foolery. With the exception of one scene, that digital foolery isn't as impressive or the trick of doing one, continuous take isn't as engaging or intriguing. Some directors who incorporate those kinds of tricks will do so in order to heighten some bit of action like a complicated stunt or some ingenious choreography and camerawork, but that doesn't seem to be the case here. With the exception of one, brief moment, involving ice, the continuous takes are nothing more than a gimmick without much merit or value-added.
Michael Angelo Covino stars as Mike, a guy about whom we know nothing. It's not clear how old he is, where he comes from and what he does for work. There is a scene at the end of the film that shows him working at a bike repair and coffee shop. Given that this film takes place over the course of several years, that ending scene is years after we first see Mike riding a bike with his best friend. Otherwise, it's unclear what Mike has been doing work-wise in all those years. Really, the only thing that we know about Mike is what is revealed in that opening bike ride where he confesses to doing something that emotionally and psychologically hurts his best friend.
Kyle Marvin also stars as Kyle, a guy about whom we know a little bit more. We meet Kyle's fiancée, a woman that may or may not be the right one for him. We also meet Kyle's family who are very overbearing and disapproving. We meet some of Kyle's other friends, but the majority of this film is Kyle dealing with his friendship with Mike, which seems like a toxic friendship where Mike continually does things that emotionally and psychologically hurts Kyle. Yet, Kyle keeps forgiving Mike and taking him back.
Yet, because of the gimmick of this film, which ultimately limits the scope, I never engaged with the so-called friendship between Mike and Kyle. Because we get a little bit more of Kyle's life, we are able to understand or even identify with him, but the film fails to provide us with much of anything to understand, identify or even empathize with Mike. He just comes across as a toxic person for no reason. He seems to care about Kyle, but he does things that make him either a leech or parasite. Because the film is structured the way that it is, we don't know if Mike is actually a leech or parasite, but, based on only what we see, that's the only conclusion that can be reached.
There simply isn't much context to the character of Mike. At one point, I thought Mike was a family member to Kyle, like maybe a cousin or something, but that turns out to be not the case. At one point, I thought Mike was bisexual and maybe he was secretly in love with Kyle, but that turns out to be not the case either. It got to a point where I realized the film just doesn't give us enough information to read who Mike is as a person beyond the circumstances we see. By the end, he's just a sad, lonely appendage in Kyle's life who doesn't really exist independently of him.
Perhaps, this is the point. Maybe, Covino and Marvin are trying to convey that certain male friendships are like this where there's a strange co-dependency. However, the structure of this film doesn't allow for much depth as to why this relationship exists. Maybe, the conclusion is that these two specific personalities feed off each other or need each other in weird or intrinsic ways, or ways that can't be explained. Unfortunately, in a fictional film, it didn't help that the depictions of the two men felt so lopsided, leaving Mike as more of an idea or sheer narrative device rather than a fully-fleshed out person. There was one point where Mike as a character reminded me of Jim Cummings' character in
Thunder Road (2018), but Cummings' character was more fleshed-out to feel like a human being rather than just a gear in this narrative bicycle.
Rated R for language, sexual content, some nudity and brief drug use.
Running Time: 1 hr. and 38 mins.
In select theaters.
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