2024 Sundance Film Festival Movie Review: Skywalkers: A Love Story

Skywalkers: A Love Story is Man on Wire for a new generation. It’s a heart-racing documentary about a death-defining stunt, how the stunt people do it, and what brought them to that point. It’s a love story, crime film, and underdog sports story all rolled into one outstanding documentary.

Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus are a thrill-seeking couple who travel around the world to perform death-defying stunts by illegally climbing the tallest buildings in the world and posting pictures on social media. The film looks at their journey as a couple, from starting as strangers who both became famous on social media for their building climbs, to them combining their influence together for bigger, more artistic focused climbs that gave them sponsorship to travel around the world, to them officially becoming a couple and powerhouse on social media. 

The film picks up when Nikolau and Beerkus are struggling with their career and relationship. Due to COVID-19 making it tough for them to travel to new places and climb, the couple becomes frustrated with their life and starts to think about new career choices. They realize the only way to save their relationship and their careers is to climb a new, 2,200-foot skyscraper that is being built in Malaysia, their most intense feat yet.

The most astonishing part of Skywalker: A Love Story is the footage the filmmakers showed in the film. Thanks to Nikolau and Beerkus utilizing Go-Pro cameras and drones, we get a first-person look at how extreme these climbs are. We see how high they are and how far a fall would be. They are climbing up wobbly pieces of construction with weather elements coming at any time. They don’t use any safety equipment and don’t climb in any special shoes or clothing. They go up there in tennis shoes, jeans, and t-shirts, and Nikolau brings an outfit change so she can change into the proper outfit for her shot. I am someone who doesn’t mind heights, but watching them climb up these buildings and sit on the very edges where a strong breeze might push them over the edge had my heart pounding and my palms sweating.

But Skywalkers: A Love Story isn’t just an anxiety-inducing visual feast. Director Jeff Zimblast focuses on the characters and their journey as lovers and artists. Besides being brought together by their shared passion for scaling tall buildings, Nikolau and Beerkus are brought together because they are lost souls trying to find a purpose in life. But they find a purpose in each other and a passion for climbing and risking their lives.

Skywalkers: A Love Story is also a crime film and an underdog sports film. The footage that we see also shows Nikolau and Beerkus breaking into the building they are climbing and at times being chased by building security. As if watching them climb the buildings weren’t stressful enough, seeing them get chased by security and face possible jail time just adds more fuel to the fire. And though everything they are doing is illegal, Zimblasts’s focus on the characters, their relationship, passion, and growth have us rooting for them to complete their big climb like we would in a sports film. There is even a montage before the film’s climax of their training and planning for their climb, a classic sports movie trope.

Skywalkers: A Love Story is an amazing documentary about love, passion, and art. This is an incredible story with even more incredible visuals. It’s a great love story, an interesting crime film, a rousing sports film, and, if you’re scared of heights, a terrifying horror film that will have you holding your breath.

Skywalkers: A Love Story premiered in the U.S. Documentary Competition at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

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