Cripes - That’s all I need to say to wrap up this movie! (And what I muttered out loud to myself at about 10 different points in the movie)
It was the last day of our Disney+ trial and I noticed that ‘Free Solo’ was available, so I carved out some time to watch it a few days ago. I was familiar with Alex Honnold, the main character of the movie, from his appearance on the ‘Joe Rogan Experience’ podcast in 2018. So I knew a little bit about his back story and the main parts of the movie. Essentially he’s one of the best free solo/rock climbing people in the world and this movie chronicles his attempt to be the first one to free solo El Capitan.
Luckily, this movie is so incredible that you can know the ending of it and the movie still makes you paralyzed with fear.
I was also familiar with one of the filmmakers, Jimmy Chin, from one of his previous movies, ‘Meru.’ So going into it, I knew the story would be amazing and the cinematography would be beautiful. I was right on both.
Immediately as a viewer, you have to ask yourself, “Who would do something like this?” And the movie does a great job of laying out exactly the kind of person who would, Alex. I thought the movie braided three main elements of Alex’s life in a way, that brought a true understanding of the situation as a whole. I loved the elements of his childhood, his new girlfriend and his passion for rock climbing. The three storylines seemed to give an honest interpretation of his life at that point and did an excellent job of helping you feel the emotions of the moment. It seemed to be a perfect collision of all three elements, which made for a fantastic movie.
When you think of all the challenges, the movie turned out beautifully. The shots that they got while climbing are incredible and if I was watching in an Imax, I might have fainted. It was wonderfully done and I definitely recommend you watch it.