The Climb is an ode to male friendship in all its toxic glory – and needs to be seen

Jacob Stolworthy talks to Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin about their darkly hilarious little-seen indie, which is a cult classic-in-waiting

Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino write and star in darkly hilarious comedy ‘The Climb’ (Sony Pictures Releasing)

Two best friends are cycling up a hill. One is on the cusp of getting married. The other has a confession to make: he slept with his fiancé. Not only does the groom’s world start disintegrating around him, but he’s halfway up a hill, struggling to reach the top. Life sucks.

It’s this revelation that kicks off The Climb, the darkly hilarious new film that is being released digitally this week. Written by its lead stars, Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Martin, and inspired by a short of the same name, the story follows the fraught friendship of two close mates over numerous years. While Mike’s recklessness and Kyle’s weak-minded acceptance make for a tempestuous combination, these men will endure anything before cutting each other off. The Climb is an ode to male friendship in all its toxic glory – a wittily observed film that finds the humour in frequently desperate situations.

The film’s trajectory, just like that bike ride, has been a bumpy one. It started strong: after receiving its world premiere at Cannes Film Festival in 2019, The Climb was met with a flood of positive reviews. Then, as the film was gearing up for a theatrical release in 2020, the pandemic hit, and the brakes slammed on. “We had a big flashy premiere, a great festival run and were teeing up to have a great theatrical release…” says Covino. “And then it all just stopped.”

Now, though, is the comedy’s time. The duo tells me their film was born from wondering “what would happen if you pushed this broken friendship to the very edge of the breaking point, and beyond”.

For Marvin, though, the film is “less about the toxicity and more the dynamic between the two characters – that sense of friendship and camaraderie and shared pleasure and trauma”.

Kyle Marvin and Michael Angelo Covino in ‘The Climb’ (Sony Pictures Releasing)

“I think there’s a distinct difference between friendships and most other relationships,” he continues. “The closest comparable is family; they’re sort of this thing where you’re like, ‘I’m always going to be with you – we have to interact.’ Whereas, you could not see friends for 15 years but then be like, ‘Wow, I see the value – I don’t have to have it, but I want it.’ There’s something special about friendships.”

Covino and Marvin are best friends in real life. And they named the characters after themselves. How true to life is the film? “I think we see each other too much to know if we’re that for each other,” Covino says, laughing. “We were drawing from a collection of relationships we have. I don’t know that I can discern it as one person in my life.”

The Climb has an unusual structure. To convey the passage of time, it is told in seven vignettes, all occurring an unspecified amount of time on from the last. Each scene – a Christmas party hosted by Kyle’s mother (Talia Balsam), for example, or a boozy New Year’s Eve at a ski resort – plays out in real time. They’re also increasingly ambitious in size, some featuring many cast members and others including choreographed stunts. Considering all but one of the scenes have no cuts, the chances of things going wrong were always high.

“It wasn’t easy,” Martin admits. “It presented a lot of problems that could have potentially been devastating.” Covino, most recently seen chasing Tom Hanks around the wilderness in Netflix western News of the World, agrees. “We were definitely teetering on the edge of blowing the whole movie up at any given point.”

Michael Angelo Covino and Kyle Marvin at ‘The Climb’s Cannes premiere in 2019 (AFP via Getty Images)

He believes this pressure “galvanised the actors and the crew”, though.

“Everyone came together and stepped up in a way we had always hoped for. We didn’t give ourselves a lot of wiggle room. We didn’t do the traditional things that would let us figure it out in the edit.”

Though the film won’t be getting a cinema release, both Covino and Marvin are hoping it will develop a cult fanbase when it lands on streaming services like Netflix and Amazon Prime. “It feels like the only option for our film is to find its audience,“ says Covino. ”The blessing is there’s potential for a lot of people to discover this film and maybe have low expectations, which always makes for the best experience.” He pauses before chuckling. “Maybe you should s*** on us.” Too late.

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In the meantime, the pair, who have produced adverts and short films together since 2010, are hard at work on a new project. They have a film script and a television show ready to film once the pandemic calms down.

“We didn’t just come on the scene and make a movie,“ Marvin says. “We’ve been doing this for 10 years, so we’ve got plenty of things we were working on already. The Climb has allowed us the ability to let loose on the world. Hopefully, it starts happening once we can film again.”

The Climb is available to Download & Keep and to rent on digital from 1 March