Tenzing
A young yak herder dreams of conquering the insurmountable in Jennifer Peedom’s poetic, dizzying biopic.
The boy with the mountain in his eyes: Samdrup Dorje Lama
Image courtesy of Altitude Film Distribution/Apple TV+.
by JAMES CAMERON-WILSON
For a while, Tenzing Norgay’s greatest claim to fame was that he had met George Mallory. He was ten-years-old at the time, and was struck by the sturdiness of the legendary mountaineer’s climbing boots. This early sequence in Jennifer Peedom’s biographical film may be a bit of dramatic licence, but the spirit of the film sits proudly on the shoulders of the Nepalese-Indian who accompanied Edmund Hillary to the top of the world on 29 May in 1953. Played with grace and charisma by the Tibetan actor Genden Phuntsok, Tenzing is finally given his due in Western cinema, becoming more than a mere footnote in mountaineering history. In this retelling, based on Ed Douglas’s book Tenzing: Hero of Everest, we see Tenzing as a young boy staring out over the landscape of Tibet and beyond. The film’s opening is one of the most striking of the year, as the young yak herder walks to the top of a hill and the camera cranes over him to reveal the majestic sight towering over the horizon. Gilded by clouds and encrusted with ice and snow, this behemoth is known as Čhomolangma to the Tibetan people, or ‘Mother Goddess.’ To young Tenzing it is a calling and he is known by the locals as “the boy with the mountain in his eyes.”
The Australian filmmaker Jennifer Peedom certainly knows her stuff, having previously directed the 2015 documentary Sherpa, which was filmed during the 2014 Mount Everest avalanche, and Mountain (2017), the latter exploring man’s relationship with insurmountable peaks around the world. Here she tackles the historical ascent of the tallest mountain on the planet, when two outsiders led ‘the British Expedition’ into the history books. The New Zealander Edmund Hillary, played here by Tom Hiddleston, was the man who received all the attention and a knighthood and has been featured in countless documentaries and TV programmes. As his climbing partner, Tenzing Norgay was also an outsider, even among the Sherpas who branded him an alien, as did the father of his wife Dawa (beautifully played by Thinley Lhamo). Hiddleston did much of his own dangerous stunt work and perfects a subtle Kiwi accent, but the film really belongs to the handsome Phuntsok who, according to Tenzing’s son Norbu Tenzing, an executive producer on the film, is “the spitting image” of his father.
While Phuntsok and Hiddleston have received considerable praise for their commitment to the physical demands of the film, one mustn’t forget Peedom, who was up there with them clinging to her monitor, a walkie-talkie and a rope attaching her to the side of the mountain. With such cinematographic dedication, Tenzing is truly a vertiginous experience, the treacherous sub-zero peaks of New Zealand’s Malte Brun Pass standing in for Mount Everest and offering jaw-dropping views of God’s high-altitude playground. At times, it almost feels like a spiritual experience and Stefan Duscio’s camera brings as much colour to the Nepalese locations as to the precipitous crevices and walls of ice of the mountain. Tenzing’s story is told in three interlinked parts, as we follow the boy to Nepal, then to Darjeeling where he courts his wife Dawa and on to the expedition itself. The film’s only weakness is Rebekka Karijord’s score which, while initially warming up the muscles of the drama, doesn’t know when to stop. If only at the film’s emotional zenith, when Tenzing and Hillary find themselves alone at the summit of their quest, the sudden stillness of their environment was allowed to exert its own silent majesty. Now, that would have been a dramatic climax.
Cast: Genden Phuntsok, Tom Hiddleston, Willem Dafoe, Caitríona Balfe, Johnny Flynn, Lhakpa Tsamchoe, Tenzin Dalha, Thinley Lhamo, Tenzin Jigmey, Samdrup Dorje Lama, Ang Pemba Sherpa, Thinley Lhamo, Choeden Sherpa, Phurba Sherpa, Elizabeth Blackmore.
Dir Jennifer Peedom, Pro Liz Watts, Emile Sherman, Iain Canning, Jennifer Peedom and Luke Davies, Ex Pro Norbu Tenzing, Simon Gillis and David Michǒd, Screenplay Luke Davies, from the book Tenzing: Hero of Everest by Ed Douglas, Ph Stefan Duscio, Pro Des Melinda Doring, Ed Simon Njoo, Music Rebekka Karijord, Costumes Kirsty Cameron, Sound Robert Mackenzie and Tara Webb, Dialect coach Jenny Kent.
Apple Studios/India Take One Productions/See-Saw Films/Stranger Than Fiction Films-Altitude Film Distribution/Apple TV+.
125 mins. Australia/UK/USA/India/Nepal. 2026. UK and US Rel: 16 October 2026. Cert. PG.
