Skywalkers: A Love Story

“We’re telling a love story,” so the self-designated “rooftopper” Angela Nikolau declares of the social media feed shared between herself and Ivan Beerkus, her partner and co-conspirator in the scaling of dangerous urban heights. Accompanying these words are a flurry of images of Nikolau and Beerkus overlooking the cityscapes below, perched in equal parts precarious safety and domestic contentment. Naturally, the love story being told is that of a couple for whom these states are much the same. It’s a moment of disarming honesty, not so much for the sentiment therein as for its blunt acknowledgement of the role social media has played in crafting this couple’s aura of romantic rebellion.

Quite accidentally, Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s Netflix-bound documentary proves to be a perceptive portrait of the ways in which tight-knit influencer couples such as Nikolau and Beerkus carefully curate their online image. It’s altogether less insightful on the matter of the daredevil activity to which they have committed themselves, and the psychology driving their commitment. Skywalkers: A Love Story offers neither the genuine curiosity regarding its subjects nor the breath-catching immediacy of Free Solo, the most obvious of its forebears. Instead, the result feels so steeped in its subjects’ self-mythologization as to have been streamed directly from their socials into the theatre (or, for the lion’s share of audiences, their laptop and phone screens, a final destination that feels fitting). There is little doubt that a documentary’s subjects should drive both the action and the core interest of the movie around them, but whether they should feel like the film’s primary authors is a different matter.

The synthetic flavour suffusing Skywalkers sets in early, as Nikolau lays out her philosophy. “Limits only exist in our mind,” she declares, in what becomes a steady stream of platitudinal soundbites. “Our strength is in our femininity,” she intones shortly thereafter. It will be little surprise to audiences when she finally concludes that the art of rooftopping has, in fact, taught her to love. However, come that point they may still feel the frustrated sense that Skywalkers has yet to truly start. As Nikolau and Beerkus’s voiceovers coalesce with Jacques Brautbar’s equally omnipresent score, there is the unmistakable sense of a lengthy advertisement for a film instead of the film itself. After all, were this the genuine article, would the filmmakers not be interested in hearing from the two’s friends and family, instead only seen dispensing support by way of FaceTime?

Still, Nikolau, Beerkus, Zimbalist and Bukhonina make sure that if you’re going to spin a yarn, framing it against a mighty canvas won’t hurt. When viewed as purely vicarious experience of some of our most vertigo-inducing heights, Skywalkers proves a more satisfying experience. If there is one thing of which the documentary leaves you in little doubt, it’s their ability to make all the derring-do look easy.

Thomas Messner

Skywalkers: A Love Story does not have a UK release date yet.

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