After reading the other comment about this movie, I feel I must disagree completely. I found the portraits well-drawn and well-acted given that the production had only two hours to convey the entire story, which of course is much more complex and horrific than could be possibly be presented in a TV movie.

While I could not comprehend the obsession that drove these people to take what seemed an extreme and ultimately deadly risk to climb and "conquer" the mountain, I really wanted them to survive and was saddened when they didn't. Maybe I'm just too sensitive or sentimental, but seeing what the movie did portray, which was distressing enough, and knowing that it isn't anything near what the real tragedy was like, made me cry. It made me think about the real people and what a waste of lives that was.