Movie
Learning to Fly
Narrative tropes
Humans Never Give Up
highBoth the elite athletes and McAdams herself face seemingly impossible challenges and choose to persist. Athletes push through brutal 100-mile mountain races where DNF-ing would be rational; McAdams confronts her own painful estrangement from running and gradually reclaims it. Resilience is the film's explicit thematic core: the mountain races function as 'both physical and metaphorical landscapes' for endurance and redemption. McAdams's arc — witnessing others push past their limits, then choosing to reclaim what she once thought impossible — frames the decision to keep going as the emotional climax, not any external victory.
About this trope: Facing impossible odds, humans endure, adapt, and find reasons to keep going. Resilience and refusal to surrender is humanity's defining and most admirable trait.
Movies that share these tropes
Full plot (spoilers)
Learning to Fly is a 2026 documentary directed by Max Lowe that follows Aisha McAdams, a former competitive runner who stepped away from the sport due to painful personal reasons and rebuilt her life as a photographer. The film opens on McAdams in her photographic career, still drawn to running but estranged from it — racing had once given her freedom, joy, and belonging before she was forced to leave it behind. Hired to document the world of elite ultra trail running, she travels to two legendary 100-mile mountain races: the Western States Endurance Run in the rugged mountains of eastern California and the Ultra-Trail du Mont-Blanc in the French Alps. At each event she photographs and interviews elite competitors, including American record-holder Jim Walmsley and Hungarian-American runner Eszter Csillag, capturing their triumphs and failures as they climb thousands of vertical feet over brutal terrain. As McAdams immerses herself in the ultra-running community and witnesses how these athletes confront their own limits, she is forced to reckon with her own complex and painful past with the sport. Gradually, by observing others push through seemingly impossible challenges, she begins to reclaim not only her love of running but her belief in her own ability to face what she once considered impossible within the sport. The film balances intimate athlete portraits with sweeping mountain cinematography (shot by Jenni Morello), using the race courses as both physical and metaphorical landscapes for themes of resilience, trauma, identity, and redemption through athletic community.
Sources: TMDb overview, Newport Film Festival program, FirstShowing.net trailer coverage