'Everest: The Other Side' Review: Tragedy Mars Ski Doc — SkimNews
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- "Everest: The Other Side" is a National Geographic documentary directed by Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi and Jimmy Chin, the Oscar-winning, formerly married duo behind 2018's "Free Solo."
- Hilaree Nelson died September 26, 2022, when a small avalanche swept her nearly 6,000 feet to her death while skiing in Nepal with partner Jim Morrison; the film holds back her fate as a "twist" revealed around the half-hour mark.
- Nelson left behind two sons — Grayden, 13, and Quinn, 11, at the start of filming — whose heartbroken testimonials feature in the documentary alongside her own interview footage wrestling with the conflict between motherhood and her ski-mountaineering ambitions.
- Jim Morrison completed the world-first feat of skiing down Everest's north face, which the review says the film celebrates with a "strangely gung-ho spirit" despite the human cost already incurred.
- Nepalese guide Pur Bahadur "Yukta" Gurung sustained a near-fatal injury on the expedition and died in an avalanche one month before the documentary's Venice premiere, honored with a posthumous tribute in the closing credits.
- The review notes the filmmakers' voices are largely sidelined along with the sherpas; Vasarhelyi at one point asks Chin how many of their dinner-table guests are now dead, and the filmmakers' own divorce filing last year is not mentioned in the film.
Why it matters: For Vasarhelyi and Chin, the "Free Solo" formula of slack-jawed spectacle runs headlong into two deaths directly tied to the expedition they're documenting — Nelson on Everest and guide Gurung before Venice. The review argues that the film's refusal to confront that cost, and the sidelining of sherpa perspectives, exposes a moral gap in how extreme-sport documentaries frame risk when it stops being abstract.
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