This review contains spoilers for “Everest: The Other Side”
One of the very first things you see in “Everest: The Other Side,” is a shot of the titular mountain. And in Jimmy Chin and Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi’s film, every shot of Everest is as majestic as you might expect. It’s an incredible sight – something most people won’t ever get to see up close and personal.
Jim Morrison, a mountaineer and backcountry skier, is one of the people who has gotten the chance to experience Everest. He, along with his partner and fellow adventurer Hilaree Nelson, are the subjects of “Everest: The Other Side,” which documents the couple’s attempt to climb and then ski down the north side of the mountain – something that had never been done before.
It’s a little impossible to talk in depth about “Everest: The Other Side” without talking about its inciting incident, which is also its most shocking. Tragically, Morrison and Nelson’s journey to achieve this historic feat together ended in 2022 after Nelson died in an avalanche while skiing with Morrison from the summit of Mansalu in Nepal.
This tragedy happens early on in the film, and shifts “Everest: The Other Side” from a film about trying to achieve the impossible to one about grief – and still, trying to achieve the impossible. In the wake of Nelson’s death, Morrison becomes determined to finish what they started in her name – and we the audience are left to wonder if his resolve is admirable, or if he is too blinded by his own sadness to think straight. At its best, “Everest: The Other Side” attempts to understand with as much empathy as possible what could push someone to the extremes that Morrison goes to – what could make someone feel as though the only way to make sense of the world is to risk life and limb. It’s a remarkably emotional and riveting experience – but one that doesn’t always reckon with the ethical quandaries that it raises.
Right before Nelson’s death happens in the film (the moment where she goes down with the avalanche was captured on camera, and is included), she gives a candid interview about the fact that she could very easily die, leaving her two sons (who feature in the film) without their mom. This moment, paired with the shocking quickness of the avalanche footage, is one of the most jarring sequences in the movie – something I’ve never quite seen in a documentary before, but also something I feel quite queasy about now that I have seen it. The avalanche, in particular, is horrifying – the kind of shot that makes you think, “She must be alive, because there’s no way they would have shown me this if she died.”
Read Sammie’s full review on Rough Draft
