Sometimes, Skywalkers: A Love Story feels more about the buildings that the titular daredevils climb, the sights they see. But it brings us back to earth, showing us Angela Nikolau and Ivan Beerkus looking at their phones. Sure, they do their regular share of doom scrolling, but they’re also finding new and ‘virgin’ buildings to climb. Their new virgin building is the Merdeka tower in Malaysia, and to prepare for that, they practise in Thailand. The documentary, then, captures those practice and real climbs and how the risk injuries tor their achievements. And just like every other couple, they start bickering, so will they set aside their ongoing conflicts for their new climb?

Beerkus and Nikolau climbed their way into the kind of life where they can travel all over the world. Skywalkers: A Love Story shows the B-roll of Paris with ‘gently introspective music’ as well as their voice overs. As an on and off Slavophile, I like the final climb when they talk about natural beauty in Russian. For contemporary home film watching, foreign languages make sense because viewers have no choice but to use all senses. Them speaking English during their narration is a conspicuous but deliberate choice, positioning themselves as citizens of the world. It goes without saying that they can make purple prose more tolerable than when many native Anglophones try it.

I do have nitpicks against Skywalkers: A Love Story, first being that it barely depicts the rooftopping community. I’ll take Nikolau and Beerkus’ words on it, especially with the sexist gatekeeping, but I wish there was more. Otherwise, the community exists on their phones, memorialising rooftoppers who either get worse injuries or fall to their deaths. The other big issue that other critics bring up about this documentary is about the occasional talk about NFTs. Both call themselves artists and their sincerity towards NFT’s as an income source after COVID is unintentionally funny. I somewhat agree with them that NFTs are art which I can say because no one will read this.

My third nitpick then is where director Jeff Zimbalist is in all of this but sure, ‘objectivity’ is good. I do like a documentary like Skywalkers: A Love Story that sticks to the fundamentals of A and B. A roll, B roll, voiceovers, maybe a lick of music that manipulates viewers in an inherently manipulative art form. A director like Zimbalist presumably knows that he doesn’t even have to Kuleshov anything – tall buildings are scary. I already talked about the purple-y prose that Beerkus and Nikolau earned their way into saying during climbs. This documentary, despite its flaws, finds its way to be equally emotionally affecting while informing viewers about art and sport.

Skywalkers: A Love Story had an IMAX run during Sundance but Netflix will do.