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Skywalkers: A Love Story review: Can You Take Me Higher?

Skywalkers: A Love Story review: Can You Take Me Higher?

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Eons ago, a wise philosopher named Scott Stapp turned his head to the heavens and shouted, “Can you take me higher?/To a place where blind men see/Can you take me higher?/To a place with streets of gold?” Whether he ever reached those great heights is unknown. However, daredevil Russian climbers Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus took a different, more active route to reach those beckoning skies. They dedicated their lives to scaling unbelievably tall skyscrapers without harnesses or safety nets. Imagine if the Free Solo man was also Ethan Hunt who climbed the Burj Khalifa in Mission: Impossible – Ghost Protocol. That’s a romantic couple in love.

Rooftopping is the name of Beerkus and Nikolau’s game, and it’s certainly a dangerous exercise to which one’s life is dedicated. For the duo presenting the new Netflix documentary Skywalkers: A Love Story, however, the unthinkable is simply reality. Nikolau in particular was destined to push boundaries and risk her safety. After all, she grew up in a circus family, with her bravado mother as her idol for how to exist. Once she got into the rooftopping game, however, she needed a mentor. That’s where the seasoned Beerkus came in.

Eventually, their dynamic morphed into something more romantic. At the same time, their ascent of iconic, towering landmarks turned the duo into celebrity sensations. Everyone loves the pair who kiss and defy vertigo with equal ease. But in 2022, Beerkus and Nikolau’s finances are dwindling and their relationship is under immense strain. It’s time for “one last job.” Malaysia’s Warisan Merdeka Tower (the world’s second tallest building) is calling their names. Their skills and love are about to face enormous challenges.

A still from Skywalkers: A Love Story by Jeff Zimbalist, an official selection of the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival. Courtesy of Sundance Institute.

Directors Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina rely heavily on Skywalkers on footage captured by Nikolau and Beerkus during their illegal adventures. Shaking bodycam footage of the duo running or gracefully climbing over cranes fills the screen. The most grandiose shots, namely those using drones to capture the pair atop famous buildings, are stunning. However, the bursts of more rickety footage subtly reinforce the homemade nature of these viral stunts. These are not super spies with state-of-the-art gadgets. Our leads are using hardware store supplies to set climbing records! Unexpected security cameras or construction workers have these two baffled. They’re not just constantly jumping over obstacles.

By relying on intimate images captured in the heat of the moment, the emphasis is placed on the everyday person at the heart of Skywalkers: A Love Story. But best of all, bodycam footage captured from miles away is incredibly effective in driving home the stakes of these exercises. These understated visual reminders of Beerkus and Nikolau’s ordinariness make the inevitable dangerousness all the more palpable. For those with even a little fear of heights, prepare to avert your eyes during such perilous sequences. This critic with a lack of acrophobia certainly caught herself swallowing loudly more than once!

For all the visual splendor of SkywalkersIt’s especially disappointing how much of the film’s proceedings rely on dialogue. Nikolau’s expository voiceover is especially overwhelming for the film’s first 30 minutes. Her reflective perspective on growing up harps on obvious details about her relationships or personality that are clearly visible on screen. It’s a challenge to enter her world with these intrusive sonic elements at play. A late circus set sequence also collapses because of this problem. Incredibly moving images unfold, returning Nikolau to the kind of location that fueled her lifelong passions. The images alone are heart-wrenching. We don’t need a narration to explain why she’s crying in this environment, either.

Skywalkers: A Love Story. Ivan Beerkus, Angela Nikolau in Skywalkers: A Love Story. Courtesy of Netflix © 2024.

The heavy presence of voice-over narration leaves Skywalkers: A Love Story torn between two types of modern documentary cinema. On the one hand, the relentless narration that contextualizes everything evokes a classic “talking heads” approach. However, Zimbalist and Bukhonina clearly want A love storysuch as recent movies and TV shows like Boys State And Run Faireto function as a doc that mimics the style of a narrative feature. The second half of the proceedings that describe the preparations for scaling up Merdeka have the editing and dialogue from a Ocean’s Eleven episode. Towards the end of the running time, Nikolau experiences “flashbacks” (complete with color tints to differentiate these images from the present) to her most beautiful experiences with Beerkus. Even the structure of the romantic conflict is more reminiscent of a three-act narrative film than the messy reality documentaries often describe.

Moving back and forth between these two forms of documentary cinema is pointless. Skywalkers: A Love Story well. Instead, the feature feels as detached from reality as a deeply filtered Instagram post. It doesn’t help that its attempts at “current events” are incredibly clumsily executed. The Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 (and Beerkus’ Ukrainian ancestors) dominate the screen for five minutes. Then the topic fades away, never to return. Worse, NFTs turn out to be crucial to the couple’s financial salvation. Delivering such an unfussy, triumphant depiction of NFTs in 2024 might make Matt Damon proud. But it doesn’t make its characters’ emotional or financial struggles any more relatable.

Many people refer to Netflix movies as things to put on in the background while doing laundry or other household chores. They’re designed for fleeting auditory pleasure, not sustained visual euphoria. Skywalkers: A Love Story is a slight deviation from that norm. It is best viewed with the mute button at the ready! Experienced in silence, the glorious images of this documentary register as extra impressive. Dare to turn up the volume, however, and the problems with the narrative and structure of Skywalkers become clear. No wonder this creative endeavor never quite reaches the meditative heights of Scott Stapp’s desire to go “higher.”

Skywalkers: A Love Story is currently available on Netflix.

Skywalkers: A Love Story Trailer: