The real-life best friends had some wise results from their smart idea when Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin debuted their short film, “The Climb” in Sundance in 2017.
The short time was only seven minutes and was ideal for the exploration of tight formal limitations-moviemakers who challenged themselves as the sole stars of the film.
A pair of BFFs on a challenging cycling tour which included revealing some long-established secrets-and discovering something different. Two years ago, this brilliant concept was extended into a winning feature that brings the bike to some exciting new locations.
According to the official summary of the film, “Kyle and Mike are also the best people to share close relationships before Mike sleeps with the fiancée of Kyle. ‘The Climb’ is about two men’s long-term, turbulent relationships of joy, heartbreak, and anger. It’s also a tale of real friends who turn their deeper relationship into a beautiful, humane, and sometimes disturbing film on the limits (or lack) of all strong relationships.
The film first screened in Cannes last May, where the film was lauded as a “brilliance reinvention of the Buddy comedy” by IndieWire’s own Eric Kohn. In the analysis, he wrote, “Recently low-budget American psychodramas like ‘Krisha’ and ‘Thunder Road’ have explored similar content, but Covino has made it into a wider variety of dramatic tapestry.
Sweden’s Ruben Ostlund and Austria’s Ulrich Seidl are more prevalent with rotating camera and the storytelling of elliptical work, sometimes with European arthouse techniques. As Covino spices up the broken tale with doubt that Mike and Kyle will ever repair their separate rifts, every new entry in their friendship is in awe of the punchline.
The “Climb” was introduced this fall at Telluride and in January is next to be shown at Sundance. It will be released in theaters on 20 March 2020 by Sony Pictures Classics.