Anne at 13,000 Ft. (2021)

Anne at 13,000 Ft. is the kind of intimate drama that sneaks up on you: it takes one seemingly exhilarating moment and uses it to illuminate how fragile, funny, and quietly terrifying everyday life can feel afterward. Deragh Campbell gives a staggering, deeply human performance, capturing Anne’s social misfires and inner turbulence with such precision you stop “watching a character” and start recognizing a person. The film’s tone is empathetic but unflinching, observing mental health with patience and clarity rather than melodrama, and it finds tension in ordinary rooms, conversations, and silences. It’s not a crowd-pleaser in the traditional sense—more a bracing character study than a tidy story—but if you like films that feel honest enough to leave a mark, it’s absolutely worth the leap.

Anne at 13,000 Ft. is clearly aiming for an intimate, lived-in portrait of a woman chasing the clarity she felt during a skydive and struggling to function once real life closes back in. The problem is it leans hard on a raw, observational style—shaky handheld camerawork, long stretches of discomfort, and an intense mental-health spiral—that can feel more exhausting than illuminating. If you need a plot-driven drama, clear emotional payoffs, or a protagonist you’ll instantly connect with, this may strike you as thin and oddly unengaging. But if you’re patient with messy, naturalistic performances and can handle anxiety-heavy scenes, there’s an honest, gritty immediacy here that might land.