Jeff Zimbalist and Maria Bukhonina’s frequently awe-inspiring documentary “Skywalkers: A Love Story” circles a relationship built on mind-boggling risk-taking. Tracing the backstories of the couple at the center and winding back to their roots in Moscow, we are first introduced to Ivan Beerkus, who is described as the biggest in the country in terms of the precarious pursuit of roof-topping. A loner, he drifted to this passion, seeking escape from his parents’ tumultuous fights. He remarks that the higher he was, the easier it was for him to breathe.
Meanwhile, Angela has had a rough childhood, having been raised mostly by her grandmother after her father walked out on her mother and away from their lives. Her parents were circus performers, and that must have transmitted itself to her, albeit to a dramatically heightened degree. Having closely watched her mother slowly shatter after being severely and irretrievably heartbroken by her father, Angela braces herself for complete self-reliance. She is initially wary when Ivan invites her to join him on a climb. He has all the sponsorships in place. However, she realizes he can teach her more than she can ever hope to if she remains stuck to her individual adventures.
While Ivan veers to the most tactful approaches to tackle any high-stakes situation, Angela is more drawn to bringing in a dose of creativity. She pushes him to craft their outings into high art. At the ascension, she throws acrobatics into the mix. Early in the film, they reiterate that they don’t prefer to be called roof-toppers. That tag doesn’t do justice to the unusual, incredulous spectacle of what they do with such love and devotion.
Together, they balance out each other. As Ivan remarks, Angela’s single-minded zeal can be terrifying. Once she angles her vision sharply onto something she wishes to accomplish, she’s practically unstoppable. Nothing can hold her back. It isn’t that she has not an ounce of trepidation in her body. Angela confesses to the fear while adding that every successive climb only makes her more confident and ready to confront the fear.
 In the film’s breath-stopping climax, a crisis hits the couple. Ivan is inclined to accept defeat and retreat, but Angela’s resolve that a solution must be around the corner makes the two surpass what seems an impossible, unaccounted impediment. At key moments during their arduous, jaw-dropping, audacious climbs, each crucially props up the other, propelling the journey forth. Naturally, the climb demands extreme mental strength, and the couple has to bank on one another to steel themselves and keep going, no matter how steep the peril seems. Trust is fundamental. Without it, everything can fall apart at any point.
Therefore, as much as the film tracks first the two separate climbs and then collectively as a couple, it is ultimately a study of a relationship, with the two learning to lean on each other bolstered by the steady knowledge of constant, unwavering support. Spanning several years of their relationship and stitching together montages of their rapidly accelerating global ascension, the directors also enumerate the bumps any equation is bound to have.
The skywalkers execute their thrillingly ambitious ventures without safety braces. Then there’s the persistent task of circumventing security. They may not be vandals, but they are trespassing on the skyscrapers’ corners that aren’t meant for public, regular access. Ivan insists it’s navigating the entry that’s trickiest without courting an extra, unwanted pair of eyes. On the way out, scrutiny and questioning are to be rarely encountered.
The film traverses the big hit the couple’s profession and relationship take once the pandemic and the Ukraine war roll in. While both have such vivid, sharp personalities that do work in sufficiently detracting you from the obvious blind spots in the way their journey is chronicled, occasionally, the fleet-footed, carefully pruned packaging of it all becomes a little too glaring to overlook. The glitzy neatness significantly overwhelms the otherwise tangible thrust of the romance that has to row past flickers of doubt and hesitation in one’s utter faith in the other. Thankfully, “Skywalkers: A Love Story” wends to a coda that will yoke you back on track with its extraordinary, gasp-inducing moments of sheer fortitude.
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