★ ★ ★ ½ ☆
Robert Zemeckis returns to the cinema of nostalgia with this
playfully sentimental story of Philippe Petit, the French tightrope artist who
dreamed of walking between the World Trade Centre Towers in 1974.
When everybody’s favourite, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, was
announced to play Petit, I must admit to having my doubts. Having seen the
fascinating James Marsh documentary Man
on Wire, the footage of Petit attempting his impossible dream always
brought to mind a young Malcolm McDowell in A
Clockwork Orange: a fidgeting, mad-eyed eccentric. Petit seemed a far-cry
from the handsome features and winning smile JGL bears so well. But, as is
often the case, I’ve been proven wrong: Levitt brings so much conviction to the
role that mere resemblance (or wobbly accent) was never a problem.
Even the rather silly voiceover delivered throughout (which
seemed rather shamelessly pinched from Marsh) feels more a quirky trait of
Petit than it is a simple narrative device. My only gripe with the huge characterization
of our outrageous lead is that his band of accomplices feels massively
underdeveloped. Ben Kingsley has a few chucklesome lines as mentor Papa Rudy,
and Charlotte Le Bon as Petit’s girlfriend Annie carries the same wide-eyed curiosity
that makes her real-life counterpart so intriguing. But there’s very little
beyond that: the remaining supporting cast are one-note and often fade into the
background as Petit prances around the frame.
The 3D, widely-reported as giving many viewers a touch of
vertigo, didn’t cause a problem for me, and is sparingly leased to a few
pop-out gags before shrinking away out of mind until the finale. If anything,
the stereoscopy serves mainly to give the special effects a fuzzy, artificial
feeling that occasionally distracts even from our hero’s furious tirades concerning
the integrity of his art, but also feels like a shroud to cover-up the flakier
elements of the script.
None of these tiny gripes, in the end, really matter: all
you’ve come to see is the climactic, titular walk itself. And blimey, if it isn’t
one of the most majestic moments I’ve ever had the fortune to see in the
cinema: suddenly the 3D justifies itself, the effervescent effects come
fancifully into play, Silvestri’s score melds into a spellbinding rendition of
Beethoven’s Für Elise, and Petit steps onto the cusp of oblivion as we’re left
with nothing but a man and his wire. For a few fleeting minutes, it’s as if
those two extraordinary buildings still stand, sunlight glinting from them and
a ridiculous Frenchman stood atop the gap, holding them up purely by the
strength of his dreams.
The Walk is two
parts magnificent to one part flimsy, but you’d have to be damn cynical not to find
yourself using the 3D glasses (as I did) to hide silent tears of wonder.
