98. Psycho Vertical; movie review

PSYCHO VERTICAL
Cert TBA
64 mins
BBFC advice: TBA

Adventurers love to use golf as a dirty word. They drop it in the same way that golfers might disparage knitters.
Andy Kirkpatrick uses the g-word as if he is looking down from a great height. And, indeed, he could be. This is a bloke who climbs the most perilous rock faces in the world.
During Jen Randall's engaging documentary he says the challenge and solitude of his sport is preferable to Mrs W's and my love for smacking a small white ball around for six miles.
Ironically, I watched Randall's documentary about Kirkpatrrick while sitting in an apartment in Gran Canaria after... playing golf.
Psycho Vertical, which was also the title of Kirkpatrick's autobiography, is an intimate self-portrait of a man who tells how he has struggled to fit into any environment other than on a rock face.
He opens up about his difficulties at school and admits that he was to blame for his marriage break-up.
His first child, whom he now adores, must find it difficult to hear that he feared that having a family would get in the way of his very personal ambitions.
And yet Psycho Vertical is certainly not a downbeat documentary. Kirkpatrick laughs a lot at himself and the predicaments he puts himself in.
Randall's film combines footage of Kirkpatrick in action on some of the world's trickiest climbs with an interview with him.
Having made pubic-speaking about his adventures part of his career, he has a knack of telling engagingly frank stories.
And it makes a refreshing change to hear someone who is proud of their achievements but not full of themselves.
Rarely have I witnessed someone who has accepted his limitations in certain areas and pushes boundaries so hard in others.
His is a compelling and honest story but I feel sorry that he seems incapable of embracing human love and has to be fulfilled in such a lonely environment.

Reasons to watch: An honest and engaging biopic
Reasons to avoid: Some may think that Kirkpatrick isn't an interesting enough character

Laughs: None
Jumps: None
Vomit: None
Nudity: None
Overall rating: 7/10

Director statement - Jen Randall: "This is going to be a film about identity, about love, it will be funny, moving... all the things that make life brilliant, hard... worth it."

The big question - What makes human beings wired so differently?

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