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Movie Review: The Climb

Mike Tyrkus

The new drama, The Climb, begins with, well, two cyclist friends climbing a winding, mountain road as they discuss their current state of affairs. It is a rather obvious metaphor for the twists and turns the relationship these two friends have will take throughout the entirety of the film.

The Climb was written and directed by Michael Angelo Covino, who also plays Mike, the better cyclist of the two, but also the worse friend. His friend, Kyle (Kyle Marvin, who also co-wrote the film) is getting married and is talking incessantly about how happy he is and how great it will be to be married. That is, until Mike reveals to him that he has slept with Kyle’s bride to be and that he is in love with her. This effectively ends the bike ride, and their relationship.

The film then skips ahead a few years and picks up the story of the two men in an episodic manner that allows the story to effortlessly allow for the passage of time. In the next segment it is not only revealed that Mike did, in fact, marry his friend’s former fiancé, but that she has now tragically passed away leaving him lost and seemingly without purpose. Kyle, meanwhile, has married Marissa (Gayle Rankin) and has been trying to be more assertive in his life. The remainder of the film serves as evidence of Mike’s aimless walk through existence trying to come to terms with losing not only the love of his life, but the friendship and connection he once had with Kyle.

Michael Angelo Covino (right) and Kyle Marvin in “The Climb.”

As a filmmaker, Covino displays a striking ability to keep the camera fluid. Nothing ever seems staid throughout the course of the film. There always seems to be something interesting going on within every frame of the movie. However, there is another aspect to filmmaking that the film sometimes flounders with. It is simply a little too sure of its own importance to tell its story and move on. There is a constant need to drive home the ultimately, very simple point of the film that, in the end, makes everything feel tedious and a bit overlong.

That is a shame because there is obvious talent at work here as Covino seems to be gifted both as a visual storyteller and as an actor, but there is simply too much on the table throughout the film that is never allowed to mature or sifted through properly enough to the point of being relevant or really all that interesting or memorable.

While The Climb itself doesn’t work as well as perhaps it could have had it been handled in a different way, it does offer a glimpse at a young filmmaker with the visual aptitude and apparent talent to make his next undertaking one to more eagerly anticipate.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com
An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

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