The Walk is one of the most unexpectedly enthralling, tense, and wonderful films I’ve watched in a long time. I demand, before even telling you I recommend it almost unequivocally, to just watch it with zero information and/or preconceptions beyond “guy walks on tightrope between the World Trade Center Towers”. I can say I went into this Robert Zemeckis film with no expectations whatsoever, and that ended up enhancing the experience significantly. Of course, the high praise I am about to give it certainly won’t help that goal, but if you’re the kind who likes to read about such media before diving into it wholeheartedly (like me, usually, except in this case for whatever reason), then please keep going!
The Walk, based on the documentary Man on Wire, tells the story of this seemingly crazy guy (Philippe Petit) who wanted to become a true “artist”, in the most pretentious of French traditions. Starting as a common street performer who eventually earns the training of Papa Rudy -a master tightrope walker himself – he sees something that sparks an irrational, crazy dream. That dream, for whatever reason, is the need to place a tightrope across the World Trade Center Towers, to be the first person to do it. Usually in films like this, they provide a reason or something, a motivation to “be the best” or “impress someone”, or from “inner strength”. The Walk simply disposes with those common film tropes, because Petit wanted to do it as a work of art, and because he could. It just seems a lot more honest to me in that light!
Somehow, Joseph Gordon-Levitt makes this megalomaniac seem charming, almost likeable in his mad quest to best the tallest buildings ever built (at least in the mid 1970s). His faux-French accent, and his commitment to really echo French mannerisms and language, speak to a real depth of commitment to this guy. Are you supposed to like Petit? Honestly, I’m thinking the film tells you that you should, but the real Petit sounds a bit more menacing and insane by comparison. Movie magic can make a terrible person into a character you care about, though, and Gordon-Levitt does a fantastic job here, not only in the acting but in the physical stunts as well!
(Note: as an aside, I realize that most of the secondary characters seem…well, secondary by comparison to the protagonist. I hear that’s pretty much how the source material is written, but everyone in the film does an excellent job bringing their characters to life with the small bit of material given to them. Really, blame the book, not the movie).
At its most basic, The Walk consists of 80 minutes where they build up to the actual Walk itself, followed by about 40 minutes of a good-natured, really illegal “heist” film where the only “heist” occurring is that of your bowel functions when you see how high this thing really is! I suppose it goes without saying, but most people pretty much know the story by now: a bunch of French people illegally find their way to the top of the World Trade Center, slap a metal wire across it, and then Petit proceeds to walk. But pictures can only do so much to recreate such an event, and that’s all the evidence that remains other than eyewitness accounts, accomplices, and Petit himself. The Walk lets you “experience” this, for lack of a better word.
Despite having a good inkling that Petit did not go SPLAT immediately upon walking on the wire itself, I’m entirely amazed that Zemeckis and the entire film crew for The Walk conveyed this so effectively. Once the actual event begins, it’s about 17 minutes of pure nail-biting and abject fear on whether this guy is actually going to fall off! The CGI in this film appears so naturally that you don’t even realize that it isn’t real, and that’s the highest complement I can give. It looks like we’re 100 stories up, to the point where my body couldn’t even tell the difference and I was getting vertigo. Once he starts going back and forth across the thing, I felt like I was literally dying as I began to sweat profusely from the sensation of tall heights combined with an emotional investment in Petit’s success. Really, this is something only cinema can do, and I can’t imagine actually seeing this in 3D; I might have actually fainted!
In sum: if this sounds even remotely interesting, please watch this film! I can say I was pleasantly surprised that this PG-film, of all things, became my favorite film of the last year, if not more. It spins a unique, engaging yarn that’s supplemented by the most unobtrusive computer graphics ever that actually enhanced the basic principles of effective film-making. How many movies can you say that about?
