Director Polly Steele’s documentary centres on Ed Jackson, a former professional rugby player who was catastrophically injured when he accidentally dived into a swimming pool’s shallow end. At one point diagnosed as quadriplegic and not expected to ever walk again, Ed regained enough control over parts of his body to be able not just to walk but, eventually, with some assistance, climb mountains.
Splicing together talking-head interview material with Jackson, his wife, Lois, and several of their friends, Steele deploys a voiced-over narrative bed for stunning images as the film explores Jackson’s story. The big central set piece covers an attempt to scale a Himalayan peak with Ben Halms, a paratrooper with similar injuries, only to discover that sometimes mountains have their own ideas, no matter how much an individual might want to prove to themselves and others that they can overcome the fiercest of odds.
Featuring lashings of soaring drone shots showing the extraordinary landscapes through which the subjects move, the film works fairly well as a visual spectacle seasoned with plenty of uplift from the men’s determination to push themselves. And in terms of docs about people with disabilities, this one is pretty honest about the mental anguish of losing mobility and – in a sideways fashion – addresses how such a change particularly affects men like Ed and Ben, hyper-masculine dudes whose identities are tied to their physical abilities.
Ed and Lois start a charitable foundation to help people with physical and mental challenges get out in nature and find community. But some may feel that the Boys’ Own adventure elements of the film grate a little, and it has little to say about those with disabilities whose idea of fun isn’t yomping all over the countryside like muscular 19th-century Christians.
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