Life Without a Parachute: A Review of Anne at 13,000 Ft.
Anne is not having a good time. It's not any one thing that's happened to her but a constellation of little things that have since added up to a big ominous feeling. Or maybe it boils down to just one thing, a sort of inherited misfiring in her synapse. Either way, she's jumping out of a plane. This is only, of course, after she was arguing with her mother over the fake fire, and Sarah wouldn't return her texts and Matt was treating her like a weirdo and Holly is trying to get her fired and the whole wading-pool business and her having already jumped out of a plane earlier in the month. But it’s high time to jump again – she feels it.
If the past two years of social and societal upheaval hasn't been enough drama for you, Kazik Radwanski's Anne at 13,000 Ft. (2019) has come to theaters to whip you right back into another panic attack. Well, that's not entirely fair – it's more of a leisurely walk through one woman's frenetic downward spiral as a meditation on the concept of control. We follow Anne (Deragh Campbell) through a period of weeks as she drifts in and out of work at a child care facility, as well as doing her duty as maid of honor for her best friend's wedding. This includes a bachelorette-themed skydiving outing, which becomes the backbone to a film that otherwise weaves in and out of a quasi-linear narrative.
The most striking aspect of Anne at 13,000 Ft. is how it's shot. Cinematographer Nikolay Michaylov crafts a rush of too-close faces and arms and winding fluid movements interrupted by jerky handheld flutters. It's overstimulating enough to make you uncomfortable in your seat, even when nothing particularly gripping is happening. But as we follow Anne’s darting eyes across the screen, the unconscious effect of the visuals will cause you to physically tense up in your own fit of empathetic paranoia. Radwanski smartly uses this natural reaction to carry the entire film; building up the audience's relationship with Anne as all at once intimate but impenetrable. By so hyper-focusing on her reactions we feel we somehow know more about her true self than those around her.
Yet as the film goes on, this artifice of intimacy begins to sour. Suddenly the often confused and insulted reactions of those surrounding Anne feel more reasonable than her vexation at their inability to understand her. Anne stews over her coworker’s helpful reminders to adhere to the strict work guidelines in caring for the children at work when she’d rather just play pretend with them. Mere hours after meeting a potential romantic partner, Anne ends up in a pass-out drunken stupor – a situation she thinks of as more a romantic meet-cute than a red-flag burden. When her best friend becomes concerned enough to take her to get help, Anne threatens to jump from the passenger seat of the moving car. We realize we don't really know what's happening with Anne, we're at as much of a concerned loss as those around her.
A Woman Under the Influence is the comparison that's been thrown around in most reviews, but beyond Campbell being a talented female lead having a mental breakdown, I'm hard pressed to see the connection. Where Rowlands and Cassavetes explore more Female Anxiety specific pains, Anne at 13,000 Ft. feels more universally about the loneliness of adulthood. What plagues Anne is less her purported role in society as it is the concept of society on whole, from having to work for a living to learning how to benevolently interact with those around you. Anne's paranoia shines a spotlight on how often trust plays a part in our daily lives – we trust others to watch our children, trust friends to support us in a crisis, trust people to respect us or do the right thing. But it's also trusting others to accept you as you are, the sort of foundational necessity that can quickly turn to thin ice when you don't behave as they expect.
It makes sense that Anne enjoys being around children as an escape. Their ability to live in the moment and accept everything as it comes – look at this shark, look at this wand, look at this silly expression – there's no thinking about the painful memories of your dead cat or thinking of that “I need space” text message or thinking about what's to become of you in the long run. Anne plunges into life, day in and day out crushed by the complexity of chasing her own happiness and impulses while juggling the expectations of those around her. They're a parachute that opens only half the time if you play your cards right and Anne can’t find the balance.
The ending of the film is ambiguous. Bookended as it is by scenes of skydiving, and given Anne’s downward mental projection, the overall feeling is ominous. Yet the more I think about it the more it rings hopeful. It’s less of a cry for help than it is a strengthening of an emotional muscle that she knows she's been neglecting. For Anne, skydiving is an exercise in establishing a sense of trust and control amid chaos – building up bravery in the face of loud noise, rushing wind and hurtling towards certain death. It's an exterior manifestation of an interior turmoil, a controlled activity of implicit trust in the face of the inevitable. A microcosm she can wrap her mind around, all it took was that extra 13,000 feet.
Anne at 13,000 Ft. is currently playing in select theaters.
