The Walk (2015)

November 20, 2015 1:25 AM

In 1974, high-wire artist Philippe Petit recruits a team of people to help him realize his dream: to walk the immense void between the World Trade Center towers.
posted by joseph conrad is fully awesome (7 comments total)

It's the story of Man on Wire made into drama? I have to see it
posted by growabrain at 1:31 AM on November 20, 2015

On the other hand: is there any reason to watch this after seeing Man on Wire?
posted by lmfsilva at 4:25 AM on November 20, 2015 [1 favorite]

I was curious to see this one primarily for the 3-D aspects, but it totally vanished from theaters near me after only a couple of weeks. The critical and audience response seemed pretty favorable -- anybody have any ideas on why it came and went so quickly?
posted by Strange Interlude at 5:17 AM on November 20, 2015

lmfsilva hit on one of the problems. The film's box office difficulties are discussed here and here.

Personally, I didn't want to see it because when the gent showed me the trailer I yelled "NOPE NOPE NOPE" and tried to dig myself into the floor.
posted by Orange Dinosaur Slide at 9:19 AM on November 20, 2015 [2 favorites]

I haven't seen the movie but by all accounts there's no reason to see this if you've seen Man on Wire except for the sequence of the actual walk. There was no actual filmed footage taken of Petit on the day (there were certainly still photos), and the high-wire segment, especially in 3D, is reportedly absolutely terrifying.
posted by figurant at 9:23 AM on November 20, 2015

I was fortunate enough to see it in the theater in 3D. Definitely visually well done. My hands were very clammy from the tension of the walk sequence. Not entirely sure why it wasn't more popular or in theaters longer, but several people whom I tried to talk into going to it begged off due to vertigo.

The characters giving the excuse of wanting to practice for going to America as a reason to have dialogue in English was pretty silly.
posted by larrybob at 3:04 PM on November 20, 2015

Saw it in 3d and it was awe inspiring. Not quite as terrifying as I expected because by the time of the walk I had caught Petit's sense of goofy enthusiasm, which was an amazing hat trick on the part of the director and cast.
posted by Bringer Tom at 9:23 AM on November 21, 2015