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.
