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Free Solo
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Jimmy Chin
Produced by	Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi Jimmy Chin Evan Hayes Shannon Dill
Starring	Alex Honnold Sanni McCandless Jimmy Chin Tommy Caldwell
Cinematography	Jimmy Chin Clair Popkin Mikey Schaefer
Edited by	Bob Eisenhardt
Music by	Marco Beltrami
Production companies	National Geographic Documentary Films Parkes+MacDonald Image Nation Little Monster Films Itinerant Media
Distributed by	National Geographic Documentary Films Greenwich Entertainment
Release dates	August 31, 2018 (2018-08-31) (Telluride) September 28, 2018 (2018-09-28) (United States)
Running time	100 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$2 million
Box office	$29.4 million

Free Solo is a 2018 American documentary film directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin that profiles rock climber Alex Honnold on his quest to perform the first-ever free solo climb of a route on El Capitan, in Yosemite National Park in California, in June 2017.

The film premiered at the 45th Telluride Film Festival on August 31, 2018, and also screened at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival, where it won the People's Choice Award in the Documentaries category. It was released in the United States on September 28, 2018, and grossed over $28 million at the worldwide box office. Free Solo received acclaim from critics and numerous accolades, including winning Best Documentary Feature at the 91st Academy Awards.

Synopsis

Climber Alex Honnold has been dreaming of free-soloing the 3,000 feet (900 m) rock wall of El Capitan in Yosemite National Park, a feat no one has performed. His choice of big wall climbing route on El Capitan is called Freerider, a route that was created by Alexander Huber in 1998, and which Honnold has completed several times with protection equipment. Freerider is graded at 5.13a (7c+) in difficulty, and no climber has ever completed a big-wall free solo at such a grade of difficulty in rock climbing history.

Alex is a shy loner who has lived and traveled alone in his van for several years, but recently he is sometimes joined by his new girlfriend Sanni McCandless (whom he later married). On one climb with Sanni, while she is feeding Alex's rope through a grigri on his descent, she makes a mistake, and he falls. He visits a physician and discovers he has some vertebral compression fractures. Alex admits to wanting to break up with Sanni over this incident, but decides against it after talking with her and learning the fractures are not very serious.

In the summer of 2016, Alex and Tommy Caldwell go climbing in Morocco to prepare for his El Capitan free solo. The film crew also prepares, discussing where to place cameras to best capture Alex’s climb while minimizing distractions and interference, and also the ethical dilemma of documenting this climb, knowing Alex may die on camera. At some point, Alex accepts an offer to receive an MRI in order to understand his brain's response to fear, and the results show that there is little or no activity in his amygdala in response to average stimuli.

In the fall of 2016, Alex sprains his ankle on El Capitan while traditional climbing (i.e., using ropes and protection equipment) on the first section of Freerider, the giant multi-pitch slab known as Freeblast and graded at 5.11b (6c). Not wanting to miss the chance to do the free climb that year, he only takes a brief break from climbing and resumes his preparations while his foot is still swollen. Around Halloween, Alex and Sanni carve pumpkins with Tommy and his wife and children. In an interview, Alex says his family did not hug and the word "love" was not used in his household, as his father lacked the ability to form emotional bonds.

Alex and Tommy rappel down Freerider on El Capitan, and Alex outlines his route, discussing the areas about which he is apprehensive. One section offers him two alternative pathways, which he calls "The Teflon Corner" (an internal right-angled section with a smooth slippery surface) and "The Boulder Problem" (a particularly intricate piece of the wall that has to be finished with either a jump or a wide "karate kick" stance). Both the crew and Sanni suggest abandoning the plan, and Alex admits he does not want his friends to see him die if he falls while free soloing. News of the death of Swiss climber Ueli Steck, with whom Alex had climbed, causes Alex to reflect on his own risk-taking, but Tommy comments on how little it ultimately seemed to affect Alex. When he finally decides to try to free solo El Capitan, Alex bails after the slab section of Freeblast, and filmmaker Jimmy Chin worries that the filming is putting unnecessary pressure on Alex.

After giving up on his plan to free solo El Capitan that season, Alex and Sanni buy a house in Las Vegas. Then, on June 3, 2017, Alex again attempts a free solo climb of Freerider. Sanni leaves just before he starts, expressing her apprehensions in an interview. The film crew watches nervously as Alex makes his way through each of the most difficult parts of the climb, and one cameraman turns away several times, as he cannot bear to watch. Alex completes the free solo in 3 hours and 56 minutes, celebrating at the top with Jimmy and—over the phone—Sanni. She quickly returns to be with him, and Alex does an interview with a journalist in which he contemplates his future, and the future of free solo climbing.

Production

Prior to filming, directors Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin struggled with the ethical ramifications and decisions behind creating Free Solo, knowing Honnold could die on camera. Ultimately, they decided to go through with the film and devoted some time to documenting its own production process, with Chin and his camera crew discussing the challenge of not endangering climber Alex Honnold by distracting him or putting any pressure at all on him to attempt the climb. According to Vasarhelyi, filming without endangering Honnold was achieved only thanks to careful planning and practice.

The production team captured 700 hours of footage using 12 cameras. This included cameramen on the ground, cameramen on the cliff face, remote trigger cameras, and a helicopter with a 1,000 mm lens to capture the 4k video. The cameramen were able to so effectively capture Honnold’s climb from different vantage points because they were all experienced climbers themselves. Wireless mics could not be used to record sound from Honnold due to his distance from the cameras, so the filmmakers created a special recording device and had Honnold carry it inside his chalk bag.

The film was made by National Geographic Partners, which at the time of the film's release was majority-owned by 21st Century Fox, with the remainder owned by the National Geographic Society.

Release

Free Solo premiered on August 31, 2018, at the 45th Telluride Film Festival, and it was shown at multiple film festivals internationally, including at the 2018 Toronto International Film Festival on September 9, after that. It was released in theaters in the U.S. on September 28.

Reception

Box office

The film grossed $17.5 million in the United States and Canada, and $11.1 million in other territories, for a total worldwide box office gross of $28.6 million.

Its opening weekend, Free Solo earned $300,804 from four theaters, its per-venue average of $75,201 surpassing both Eighth Grade for the highest per-venue average of 2018, and An Inconvenient Sequel (2017) for the highest-ever per-venue average for a documentary. The film expanded to 41 theaters its second weekend, earning $562,786, and then grossed $859,051 from 129 theaters its third weekend and $1 million from 251 theaters its fourth weekend. During its fifth weekend in theaters, the film earned $1.06 million from 394 theaters, bringing its total box office gross to over $5 million.

Critical response

On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 98% of 160 critics' reviews of the film are positive, with an average rating of 8.2/10; the site's "critics consensus" reads: "Free Solo depicts athletic feats that many viewers will find beyond reason – and grounds the attempts in passions that are all but universal." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 83 out of 100 based on reviews from 25 critics, indicating "universal acclaim".

Peter Debruge of Variety praised the pacing of the film, saying: "Apart from a slow stretch around the hour mark, the filmmakers keep things lively (with a big assist from Marco Beltrami's pulse-quickening score, the nail-biting opposite of Tim McGraw's soaring end-credits single, "Gravity")." Richard Lawson of Vanity Fair called the film "bracingly made" and felt the filmmakers properly conveyed the challenges and dangers faced by Honnold in his endeavors: "Free Solo's detailed, transfixing portrait of their hero will at least show some sort of barrier to entry, communicating to those eager wannabes that very few people indeed are built quite like Alex Honnold. And thank goodness, in a way, for that."

Michael Hale of Sight and Sound praised the filming techniques and resulting effect, saying that an image reminiscent of Greek mythology is evoked as Honnold is captured scaling the immense wall of El Capitan. John Doyle of The Globe and Mail commended the "texture" of film, specifically the tension and intensity as Honnold repeatedly risks death, as well as the relatability of the scenes with Honnold and his girlfriend.

Sam Wollastan of The Irish Times wrote that the film effectively captures an amazing athletic feat, the emotional development of Honnold, and the budding romance between Honnold and McCandless. Jane Mulkerrins of The Times also praised this emotional development arc, remarking on the duality of the film as it examines Honnold's preparation and climb alongside his relationship with McCandless: " captures the death-defying climb with vertigo-inducing camerawork. We see Honnold getting ready for the climb… At the same time, the armour of invincibility he's built up over the years fractures when he begins to fall in love with Sanni.”

Accolades

See also

• The Alpinist, a 2021 documentary film about the late Canadian alpinist Marc-André Leclerc, featuring various free solo ice and alpine ascents.
• The Dawn Wall, a 2017 documentary film on Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson's free climb of The Dawn Wall on El Capitan in Yosemite
• Meru, a 2015 documentary film on the ascent of the Shark's Fin route on Meru Peak

References

1. Wiseman, Andreas (10 September 2019). "'Free Solo' Distributor Greenwich Entertainment Sets Canadian Output Deal With LevelFILM — TIFF". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved 13 May 2024.
2. "'What If He Fell?' The Huge Risks of 'Free Solo' Mean Its Reward Could Be the Best Doc Oscar". IndieWire. 15 February 2019. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
3. "Free Solo (2018)". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved December 9, 2022.
4. Wilkinson, Alissa (February 22, 2019). "A guide to this year's exceptionally good Oscar-nominated documentaries". Vox.
5. "Free Solo Movie Review". Common Sense Media.
6. "'Free Solo': How filmmakers avoided kill Alex Honnold as he climbed". USA Today. October 3, 2018.
7. ^ Nordine, Michael (September 16, 2018). "TIFF 2018 Awards: 'Green Book' Wins the People's Choice Award, Upsetting 'A Star Is Born'". IndieWire. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
8. ^ "Free Solo Release Info". IMDb.
9. "Oscar Nominations 2019: The Complete List". Variety. January 22, 2019. Retrieved January 22, 2019.
10. ""Free Solo" wins Best Documentary Feature". March 25, 2019 – via Oscars on YouTube.
11. Vasarhelyi and Chin (2018). "What if He Falls". U.S. Newsstream. ProQuest 2127414312.
12. ^ O'Falt, Chris (October 17, 2018). "At 3,000 Feet, Shooting 'Free Solo' Was More Like 'Mission: Impossible' Than a Documentary". IndieWire. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
13. ^ Salisbury, M (2019). "Capturing the Drama of a Free Solo Climb Up El Capitan". Broadcast. ProQuest 2174304892.
14. ^ Feinberg, Scott (2019). "Could Free Solo Break through Category Barriers? the Ambitious Film about Climber Alex Honnold Required its Cameramen to be both Climbers and Shooters, a Virtuosic Achievement -- but It Faces Equally Complicated Challenges (its Genre, its Multiple DPs) on the Path to a Cinematography Nomination". Hollywood Reporter. Vol. 425. pp. 25–26.
15. "Nat Geo Channel to Air Ad-Free 'Free Solo' on Sunday, March 3". Multichannel. February 27, 2019.
16. O'Falt, Chris (October 3, 2018). "Alex Honnold's Freerider Free Solo: 360 Degree Video". Climbing.
17. "Free Solo (2018) – Financial Information". The Numbers. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
18. Rubin, Rebecca (September 30, 2018). "'Free Solo' Documentary Climbs Indie Box Office With Best Screen Average of 2018". Variety. Archived from the original on September 30, 2018. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
19. Brooks, Brian (October 7, 2018). "'Studio 54' And 'Free Solo': It's Still All About The Parties – Specialty Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
20. Brooks, Brian (October 14, 2018). "'Beautiful Boy' Tops Not-So-Hot Weekend; 'Free Solo' Over $2.1M: Specialty Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
21. Brooks, Brian (October 21, 2018). "'Mid90s' Off To Far From Middling Start; 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?' & 'Wildlife' Solid In Bows – Specialty Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
22. Brooks, Brian (October 28, 2018). "'Suspiria' Opens Big with Year's Best Average; 'Can You Ever Forgive Me?' Solid: Specialty Box Office". Deadline Hollywood. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
23. "Free Solo (2018)". Rotten Tomatoes. Fandango. Retrieved August 10, 2024.
24. "Free Solo". Metacritic. Retrieved January 3, 2019.
25. Debruge, Peter (August 31, 2018). "Film Review: 'Free Solo'". Variety. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
26. Lawson, Richard (September 1, 2018). "Review: Free Solo Is a Dizzying, Fascinating Rock-Climbing Documentary". Vanity Fair. Retrieved November 24, 2018.
27. Hale, Michael (2019). "Free Solo". Sight and Sound. 29: 102–103. ProQuest 2166689763.
28. Doyle, John (2019). "Watch this and Gasp: Oscar-Winner Free Solo is a Stunner: Alex Honnold's Extraordinary Feat may Prove Stressful to Watch, but the climb—and the intensity of watching it—is breathtaking". The Globe and Mail.
29. Wollastan, Sam (2019). "Fighting a Single-Handed Battle Against Gravity: Alex Honnold Scaled the World's Toughest Clim El Capitan on His Own and without a Rope. Thanks to an Oscar-Winning Film, the World has Now Noticed". The Irish Times.
30. Mulkerrins, Jane (2018). "He Hangs on by His Fingertips for Four : When Alex Honnold Scaled the El Capitan Rock Face in California Unaided, it Confirmed His Reputation as the Most Fearless Free Climber on the Planet. An Astonish Documentary Recorded the Remarkable Feat, but do You have the Nerve to Watch it?". The Times.
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32. Lewis, Hilary (December 8, 2018). "IDA Documentary Awards: 'Minding the Gap' Wins Best Feature". The Hollywood Reporter. Retrieved December 21, 2018.
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40. "Free Solo". Emmys.com. Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. Retrieved July 16, 2019.

External links

• Free Solo at IMDb

v t e Yosemite National Park
Attractions	Yosemite Valley Yosemite Village Hetch Hetchy Glacier Point Badger Pass Mariposa Grove of Giant Sequoias Tuolumne Meadows Tioga Pass Wawona Tree Chilnualna Falls Valley attractions Half Dome Yosemite Falls El Capitan Films: El Capitan, The Dawn Wall, Free Solo, To the Limit Bridalveil Fall Happy Isles Mirror Lake North Dome Vernal Fall Nevada Fall Little Yosemite Valley LeConte Lodge Bracebridge Dinner Yosemite Firefall Yosemite Valley Chapel Hiking trails John Muir Trail Mist Trail Panorama Trail McGurk Meadow Ostrander Lake Taft Point Sentinel Dome Alder Creek Mariposa Grove Wapama Falls Lembert Dome Rock climbs Fairview Dome, North Face Half Dome, Northwest Face Lost Arrow Spire Lost Arrow Spire Tip Midnight Lightning Royal Arches Route Salathé Wall (El Capitan) Steck-Salathé Route (Sentinel Rock) Separate Reality The Nose (El Capitan)
People	John Muir Stephen T. Mather Galen Clark Shelton Johnson Buffalo Soldiers Chief Tenaya Ahwahnechee people
Lodging and camping	Yosemite Lodge at the Falls The Ahwahnee Camp Curry Wawona Hotel Housekeeping Camp High Sierra Camps Camp 4
Natural disasters	1938 Yosemite TWA crash 1996 Yosemite Valley landslide 1997 Merced River flood 2013 Rim Wildfire 2022 Washburn Wildfire
Transportation	Nearby airports FAT RMY MMH YARTS Route 140 Route 41 Route 120
Nearby municipalities	Foresta El Portal & Arch Rock Entrance Yosemite West & Chinquapin Wawona Bootjack Mariposa Briceburg Oakhurst Midpines Lee Vining
Additional information	History of the Yosemite area Geology of the Yosemite area National Register of Historic Places in Yosemite National Park List of waterfalls Yosemite Category California Portal

• 2018 films
• Primetime Emmy Award–winning broadcasts
• American sports documentary films
• American self-reflexive films
• Best Documentary Feature Academy Award winners
• Documentary films about climbing
• Films directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
• Films directed by Jimmy Chin
• Films scored by Marco Beltrami
• Films set in California
• Films shot in California
• National Geographic Society films
• Films set in Yosemite National Park
• 2010s English-language films
• 2010s American films
• Free solo climbing
• Films shot in Sacramento, California
• English-language documentary films