Synopsis
An epic journey of friendship and self-discovery set in the breathtaking Italian Alps, The Eight Mountains follows over four decades the profound, complex relationship between Pietro and Bruno.
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Cast
- Luca MarinelliPietro Guasti
- Alessandro BorghiBruno Guglielmina
- Lupo BarbieroPietro (as a child)
- Cristiano SassellaBruno (as a child)
- Elisabetta MazzulloLara
- Andrea PalmaPietro (as a teenager)
- Surakshya PantaAsmi
- Elena LiettiFrancesca Guasti
- Filippo TimiGiovanni Guasti
- Elisa ZanottoBarbara
Recommendations
- 100
The Guardian
This film has mystery and passion, it climbs mountainous heights and rewards you with the opposite of vertigo: a sort of exaltation. - 89
TheWrap
What sets The Eight Mountains apart is the degree to which co-directors van Groeningen and Vandermeersch strip away so much pretense and artifice, leaving nothing but a strong central question: What makes and prevents people from meaningfully connecting? The filmmakers then strike a refreshingly unsentimental tone when answering it. - 83
IndieWire
The Eight Mountains lovingly adapts Paolo Cognetti’s novel of the same name, a valentine to brotherhood and a shape-shifting tale of self-discovery, resilience, nature and love — platonic but more steely than any rock you could climb – that somehow rarely feels like it treads a single step of the endless stream of movies and literature capturing the ever-evolving yet enduring nature of all of those just mentioned things since time immemorial. - 80
Los Angeles Times
This is the rare movie that understands how tied we are to the physical and psychological spaces of childhood, how our families and the traditions they raised us with can be both nurturing and limiting. - 80
Variety
Stately and serene from a distance, but up close riven with the fissures and follies of a friendship that costs both men so much but gives them even more, the movie, too, is a mountain. - 75
The Playlist
The Eight Mountains is a sentimental ode to those singular friendships we make in our lives, the kind that can’t be severed by any amount of distance, physical or temporal. Even when there’s so much left unsaid, it’s the comfort they find in each other that resonates most. - 70
Screen Daily
It’s a fairly conventional, risk-averse piece of filmmaking, but the film’s gentle, meandering story works its way to a conclusion which plays out in a minor key, suggesting that certain cycles are hard to break and that even a seemingly idyllic life comes at a cost. - 60
The Hollywood Reporter
It’s a pleasurable enough watch — nicely acted and with a gentle rhythm tuned to the main characters’ searching paths as they drift in and out of each other’s lives over 30 years — though ultimately, it lacks weight.
