When you think of Disney+, the first thing you think of probably isn’t the streamer’s wide array of documentaries. Given the number of franchises and animated classics available, that’s probably fair.
Once you’ve made it past all those movies, though, you might want to check out Free Solo, an incredible documentary about Alex Honnold, a rock climber planning to climb the face of El Capitan without any ropes. If he falls, he dies.
Here are three reasons you should check the movie out on Disney+ this month:
Alex Honnold is as fascinating as you might expect
A great documentary needs a great subject, and Free Solo has one in Honnold, an experienced rock climber who seems to totally accept the possibility that he could die doing the thing he loves.
Not only does Free Solo chronicle Honnold’s attempt to summit a 3,000-foot rock wall, but it also explores his relationships with friends and family and the way even those closest to him struggle to understand what makes him tick. The rock climbing is great, but so are the moments when we just get to observe Honnold.
The movie feels impressively tense
Even though you know in the back of your mind that Free Solo would never have been released if its central character died doing what he was attempting, Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin’s documentary still manages to wring incredible tension out of how reckless Honnold is being with his own safety.
We know that he’s going to be climbing for hours, and if he falls at any point, it’s over. To the movie’s credit, it has cameras on him the whole time and also takes plenty of time to lay out every stage of the climb so that even if you’re not a rock climber yourself, you understand which parts are going to be the most difficult.
Free Solo knows how to balance small-scale drama with epic stakes
Obviously, the biggest storyline in Free Solo is whether Honnold will scale a giant wall of rock without plummeting to his death. The smaller story, though, is how alienated the people around Honnold are by his quest for greatness.
Specifically, the movie focuses on Honnold’s girlfriend, who loves him dearly but fundamentally doesn’t understand why he would do something that he knows could separate them forever. Some of the movie’s most fascinating moments come as we see her reflect on what it would mean to lose him, knowing that he would be dying willingly. It’s heartbreaking and fascinating stuff.
You can watch Free Solo on Disney+.