Based on a true story, Phillipe Petit (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) follows his dream to walk the void between the World Trade Center’s Twin Towers. The film opens on Petit standing on a cliff in New Jersey, narrating his vision and his life’s purpose… in a seductive French accent, no less. Immediately we’re sold. He asks us with just the proper dose of French arrogance, “What do you tempt? Fate? Death?”
The story takes us back to Paris, pre 1974, where for Petit, he began as a self-proclaimed wire walker in his backyard, before and eventually risking the tightrope towers at Notre Dame. Good practice.
Gordon-Levitt’s body language is certain, his stance posed, his position so forthright, one wonders if Gordon-Levitt didn’t begin his acting career in a circus. Petit spends his time finding the perfect place to hang his wire, while hanging his hat at the home of Papa Rudy (Ben Kingsley) a man who knows the tricks of the trade…the cable placement, the wind velocity, and the ‘piece de resistance’ which is the cable resistance needed to attempt his feat.
As with any typical French man, Petit can’t work without amour, so he brings the lovely street performer, Annie (Charlotte LeBron) – he did steal her ‘‘street corner’ after all – to America, to find his dream. LeBron is lovely to look at, a young French version of America’s Winona Ryder. But she does little much but hang on the sidelines getting some sort of rush from his entourage and his plan.
At a certain point, and when Petit arrives to America, we’re relieved to see narration of his future come to terms with his present. Perhaps that’s because we could see our own future in the Twin Towers demise, only adding guilt to our enjoyment of the whimsical jazzy-cool soundtrack accompanying our determined young man. But narration is typical for the director, Robert Zemeckis, who brought us his “Life is a Box of Chocolates” narration from a bench of Forrest Gump. Zemeckis is one of the Hollywood greats, and his films know how to entertain dating back to well, Back to the Future.
We’re convinced Gordon-Levitt wants to climb the Twin Towers, and we share his passion, but it’s not until he’s balancing across the actual buildings that we’re sold. It’s here that we abandon our guilty pleasure, push the 3D glasses up on our noses, and immerse into the rush of the wind, the vertical of the drop, beneath his toes.
The irony is the film is completely suspenseful but without one bomb, explosion or gun. Instead the story plays out like a tension-driven cat and mouse caper. And in those last fifteen minutes of Petit’s story, suddenly our Twin towers are brought back to life. We’re reminded of happier times…something us Americans might need just about now. ♕ ♚ ♛