Social Climbers: Everest

This household has an inordinate fascination with survivor movies - in space, at sea, western, eastern - but atop them all are mountain-climbing expeditions, who knows why? Certainly something I could never see myself doing even for a moment or at any stage of my life. Maybe that is why. Anyway, the recent Everest, a retelling of the fatal 1996 attempts at the summit that Gary Krakauer recounted in Into Thin Air (he is one of the characters in Everest), about the year when there was an onslaught of commercial expeditions, with pros helping amateurs who had no business being there but could fork up $65k fees, up the slope. Not only does the film show, as many others have, the difficulty of the climb, but it also shows how Everest was becoming perverted, like a theme park, w/ so many expeditions crowding each other out and making the ascent even more dangerous, and with the leaders feeling compelled to get their clients to the top even when they had no business doing so - leading to a #of deaths, injuries, and disfigurements. The climbers had totally unreasonable expectations of their guides, as if they'd make everything possible, when of course they, too, were up against terrible odds and conditions and, being human, made some bad judgments when exhausted and deprived of oxygen. Though the movie covers familiar ground and though the attempt to broaden the appeal by splicing in various conversations between the climbers and their spouses at home (Knightly and Robin Wright in thankless roles), it does hold you wrapt over the full 2 hours which says a lot.