THE STORY – A daring couple travels worldwide to climb the 118-story megatall skyscraper, Merdeka 118, in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, attempting a bold acrobatic stunt on the spire to salvage both their career and relationship.
THE CAST – Angela Nikolau & Ivan Beerkus
THE TEAM – Jeff Zimbalist (Director/Writer) & Maria Bukhonina (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 111 Minutes
Falling in love is a bit like climbing the world’s tallest buildings. It’s always an uphill battle in pursuit of reaching the next level, especially when aggressive winds pick up around you. You have to trust harder than ever before because one wrong move could be the end of it all, and it’s important to never look back because it’ll be too difficult to keep moving forward. All these lessons are displayed in terrifying real-time in directors Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s new documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story“ about two Russian “skywalkers“ who push themselves to new heights, literally, as they scale some of the tallest buildings on Earth. The views are jaw-dropping and will make those with acrophobia feel queasy. But the rest of the film fails to reach those same highs as it follows, frankly speaking, two shallow people who are in it for the fame and Instagram likes rather than anything much more substantial. By the end of the film, audiences are not really sure why they would root for them, aside from getting to see a cool picture.
How anyone gets into something as reckless as rooftopping, also known as skywalking, is hard to explain, but AngelaNikolau and Vanya Kuznetsov (who goes by the name Ivan Beerkus) give us some insight. She comes from a circus family and was used to seeing her parents soar to great lengths together in their act, showing her just how magical love can be. But when her father left, which threw her mother into a depression, it invigorated something in Angela to push her to do something spectacular, especially as rooftopping in Russia was an increasingly male-dominated field. On the other hand, Ivan recalls an unhappy childhood and how he’d escape with friends on rooftops. The higher he went on the climbs, the easier it felt to breathe, he says at one point. But he doesn’t further explain why this activity specifically helped him on what he was experiencing in his life to benefit from the escapism of rooftopping.
Their two stories converge when Ivan reached out to Angela in 2016 for a joint collaboration to climb the tallest construction site in Asia — which company sponsored them and why is not explained — and shortly after, they’re inseparable. They seem like a match made in heaven on the climbing front — she adds a beautiful and artistic flair to her photos with costumes and props while he encourages them to keep seeking new and more challenging climbs. Flashes of increasingly terrifying and unbelievable stunts go by in the film, each making one’s hands clammy and one’s heart beat faster the higher one goes. Sometimes, it is unclear which POV is harder to look at, viewing the climbs from the GoPros strapped to the climber’s heads or seeing drone footage of the scene from far out. At times, these moments are interrupted by corny voiceovers of Angela and Ivan realizing they “might be the exception“ to each other’s rules about not trusting other people.
There is no question that the photos they take are stunning, but one can’t help but ask if it’s at all worth it. Both Angela and Ivan say skywalking is about “self-growth“ and not about the likes, but the film does not give much explanation as to why they push themselves to the brink of death time and time again. In one scene, we see them arguing on top of a structure because Angela doesn’t think the shot is good enough, while Ivan is more concerned about their safety. If you’re just looking for one incredible shot, certainly there are other ways to achieve that other than climbing thousands of feet into the air. We see that prove true when the COVID pandemic hits, and they’re forced to look to other avenues for money. Some may say Angela and Ivan’s reasoning and ambitions remind them of Alex Honnold from “Free Solo,“ as he attempted to climb Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan without any ropes. Both are definitely reckless activities, but at least Honnold’s climb was a feat of athleticism. Angela and Ivan doing this over sponsorships and likes seems conceited, and it doesn’t deserve all the fanfare. Not to mention, the documentary and its leads quickly brush past how many of their friends have died attempting to do the same idiotic things they do.
The most interesting and nail-biting portion of the documentary comes when the couple decides to take on the Merdeka 118, the second-tallest building in the world. The film smartly slows down here so that audiences can see how Angela and Ivan prepare to take on their climbs, which includes channeling their inner spies by pulling up blueprints of the building, scoping the area, practicing their moves, and packing all the right materials. The climb also comes with several dangers that add to the stress of watching them attempt it – the two of them have to hide for 30 hours so that they don’t get caught, their health declines as they begin to dehydrate, and there’s concern over a final stunt if they make it to the top. On top of all this, the couple is fighting nonstop in the weeks leading up to the climb – some arguments are valid, but others are not. As well as it all plays on screen, that one blaring question comes back to our mind: Is this worth it?
There’s a lot that “Skywalkers: A Love Story“ brushes past quickly or skips entirely that would have elevated the film, including what it takes mentally and physically to accomplish these climbs, how Ivan deals with his family’s lack of support, what other skywalkers have to say about their work, and what they’re like when they’re not prepping for a climb. There are also mentions of the Russian-Ukrainian war, a big reason why they leave their country to do the Merdeka 118 climb, but, again, they share very few thoughts about the war and the way freedom of speech and expression is being restricted. Without that exploration, the audience doesn’t gain an intimate understanding of who Angela and Ivan are and how their work impacts and likely inspires other climbers.
In the end, “Skywalkers: A Love Story“ is a film that packs a punch visually but lacks any other substantial material to bring us closer to the subjects and their passions. Viewers will undoubtedly go on a rollercoaster ride emotionally as they take in the sights from several thousand feet in the air, but the rest of the story fails to reach those same highs.
