The shadow of Alex Honnold looms large. As the most famous rock climber in the world, and the undeniable face of the sport to those on the outside, there are no conversations about climbing that don’t in some way incorporate Honnold. The exposure he has brought to rock climbing is a touchy subject within the community — over-crowded climbs and underprepared climbers have increased injury and tension — and the newfound abundance of climbing documentaries is merely a reflection of the sport’s over-saturation in the zeitgeist. Free Solo, the 2019 film depicting Honnold’s unroped climb of Yosemite’s El Capitan, set the standard for films on the subject, and in the years since, many have tried to duplicate its achievements, with varying levels of success. The fact that Honnold is at minimum a talking head and just as often a main subject in nearly all these films only encourages the sport’s dependence on him as a spokesperson, but with that ubiquity comes diminishing returns each time. This year, Alexandra Elkin’s Inner Walls reflects the latest attempt at adding a new face to the roster of climbers drawing audiences to the theater to witness the towering heights of their accomplishments.
While Honnold, of course, makes an appearance in Inner Walls, it’s actually his mother who plays a significant part in the film. Dierdre Wolownick, the oldest woman to climb El Cap, is, much like her son, a force to be reckoned with. At 66, she climbed the peak with Honnold, setting the record, and beating it four years later with a group of friends, after climbing for the first time only 10 years prior. The other main character in the film is Elkin herself, a comparatively inexperienced climber whom Wolownick invites to join on a trip to the valley. Juxtaposing the accomplishments of Wolownick, despite her age, and Elkin, despite her wet-behind-the-ears climbing bona fides, Inner Walls attempts to break down those, well, inner walls that come part and parcel with tackling impressive feats.
Given that description, viewers might expect to be presented with more of an emotional climb than a physical one, and Inner Walls certainly does accumulate a few such moments: Elkin, halfway up a wall, exclaiming, “I shouldn’t be crying, I’m a fucking adult,” for example. But Inner Walls is shockingly thin, not just in delivering those (melo)dramatic beats, but on anything of substance at all. The shared adventure presented here between a young, more inexperienced climber and a seasoned vet is clearly intended to invoke some sort of feeling, but unlike the rock faces that are being scaled, the attempt and execution both come off unfortunately flat, with nothing much beyond easy platitudes to chew on.
On a technical level, the film at least checks the necessary visual boxes of the genre: sweeping, splendid views of Yosemite and other climbing destinations fill the frames, with highlighted action vantages from the bottom, middle, and top of the grand edifices that are being climbed. But in this age of digital filmmaking, and particularly in the subgenre of nature-centered documentaries, and even more particularly in the sub-subgenre of climbing films, pretty images alone aren’t nearly enough. Inner Walls isn’t alone in this failure — a lack of substantive discourse or genuinely engaging formal design has been an issue in adventure documentaries for years, and many never quite find the right foothold from which to appeal to targeted audience in a way that doesn’t feel like pure retread, let alone other viewers. Honnold may have given climbing films a new allure, but it’s beyond time for them to step out of his shadow. If there is anything new under the sun, or mountain, to be found, the past several years and countless efforts are proof that it won’t be found there.
Published as part of Fantasia Fest 2025 — Dispatch 3.
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