L'ascension

This was an easy to watch, lighthearted French film about a guy from a housing estate climbing Mt Everest. It took a while for me to get into it, and a big part of the reason I did, was only because of my interest in Mt Everest.

Mt Everest and the Nepalese culture are really the stars of the film here. I found it hard to like the main character for the first half of the film. He came across quite insulting and disrespectful to others and a lot of the humour didn't stick.

I am, however, a sucker for a good hiking or mountain movie. The Climb has a lot of heart and it's light, breezy nature was kind of infectious - albeit adding an unrealistic vibe to things. It was a bit too cheesy in parts.

If you're after a light and easygoing French film with spectacular scenery, then this might be for you. I'll probably have forgotten about it in a week though.

It was a long time ago since i droped so many tears during a movie. Fantastic film.

With his on-off romance with Nadia going nowhere, Samy promises to prove his love to her by climbing Everest. It's not the normal thing to do for a young Senegalese-French guy from a deprived Parisian suburb. Particularly since he's never climbed anything higher than the stairs to the top of his apartment block. But with unexpected determination, he first finds a tour package (at 40,000) and then even more unexpectedly gets the financial backing of a local radio station.

On his arrival on Kathmandu, things look bleak. Samy has packed some pretty inappropriate things, it's quickly apparent that he knows nothing and the group leader seems brusque and unsympathetic. But he does find a kindred spirit in Johnny le sherpa, and he does seem to manage to keep smiling. Will that be enough?

The film executes its simple formula beautifully. Anything that is lacking in nuance is made up for by the film's warm heart. All the acting is strong, particularly from Ahmed Sylla as Samy and Umesh Tamang as Johnny and the relationships feel believable. Apart from a few references to pot smoking, this is a good family movie.

Really loved this cute movie and the main actor is amazingly likeable.

I just hope viewers won't think that it's easy to reach the top of Mt. Everest and foolishly go there.

An enjoyable enough fish-out-of-water tale of a young black man from a Parisian ghetto attempting to climb mount Everest. There's some beautiful cinematography of the mountains ... but the fact that it's presented as a based on a "true story" when the narrative bears hardly any resemblance to the real life events undermines the success of the movie. I would imagine it makes serious mountaineers cringe.