The plot: Tea broker Robin Cavendish (Andrew Garfield),
after being stricken by polio and rendered paralysed from the neck down, has
been given only three months left to live. However, between his wife Diana’s
(Claire Foy) words of encouragement and his own resolve, he plans on being
around for a bit longer than that. As he adjusts to his new living conditions,
his friends and family all chip in to help him out, starting a movement that
would lead Robin Cavendish to become one of the most famous advocates for the
disabled in history.
Garfield is in top form here, creating this pervasively
chipper presence that echoes Eddie Redmayne in The Theory Of Everything in how
infectious his spirit is. On top of that, he manages very well with the more
sombre moments, hitting genuine tragedy without it getting too morose. Foy goes
beyond just having terrific chemistry with our lead (which undoubtedly has) and
becomes a shining beacon of optimism that pulls both the audience and Robin
himself into the film’s brighter moments. She is the avatar of the film’s
inspirational tone, something that she carries expertly in every scene. Tom
Hollander as both of Diana’s twin brothers steps into awkward comic relief
territory at times, but once the rest of the film starts to catch up with him
in tone, he fits right in and even gives us one of the film’s more quietly
emotional moments as they sing farewell to their friend.
Hugh Bonneville as inventor Teddy Hall fills the role with a
serious creative spark, coming across as someone who would do anything for a
dear friend; as a depiction of an absolute legend of a human being for what he
contributed to the disabled community, he fits excellently. Dean-Charles
Chapman as Robin and Diana’s son Jonathon (who is also one of this film’s main
producers) gives a lot of emotional air to his mostly-quiet scenes, Jonathan
Hyde as the doctor Robin proved wrong fits into the “doctor who doesn’t know
that the phrase ‘bedside manner’ even exists, let alone exhibit it” mode that
quite a few antagonists(?) in these types of stories end up sticking to, and
Stephen Mangan as the stark contrast to that makes for a very warming presence,
particularly in his scenes opposite Garfield.
There’s a scene in the film where a priest visits Robin in
his hospital bed. The priest proceeds to tell him that God has a plan, meaning
that Robin’s illness and current medical state are part of it and were always
meant to happen. Robin then gets the priest to lean in closer just so he can
literally spit in his face. I bring this up for two reasons: One, this scene is
amazing, and two, this establishes the cheekily defiant tone of the rest of the
film. While it doesn’t exactly skimp out on some of the darker details, like
Robin’s initial bout of suicidal depression over what polio reduced him to, it
mainly sticks to Robin’s efforts to live a fruitful life in spite of his
circumstances. It’s definitely light but not to the point where it feels
insulting or purposely glossing over the uncomfortable stuff.
And honestly, I
really friggin’ like this approach. It gets tiring after a while of people
making out a person’s disability to be nothing more than a life sentence (or,
depending on severity, a death sentence), so seeing a film like this that sets
out to show that it’s not the end of everything is rather comforting as someone
who needs disability support himself.
Not that the film is all sentiment with no purpose; it most
certainly aims squarely for the heart, but there’s something just a little bit
juicier in here as well. People with certain medical needs tend to have a
love-hate relationship with the medical profession as a whole. On one hand,
they provide the means for specific types of care to be administered, and they
are often the only thing between being in a hospital bed and being in a locker
in the morgue. On the other hand, they can also be rather cold as far as
tending to patients’ needs, treating them more as walking diagnoses than actual
individual people. This is a notion that gets echoed a lot in cinema as well;
it’s one of the reasons why the medical establishment is often depicted as
either the primary or secondary villains of stories involving hospitals and
especially mental institutions.
Here, it gets a good going-over through Robin’s
determination to live longer than his initial 3-month prognosis, but it also
gets looked at something entirely detrimental to a patient’s wellbeing. As much
as medical conditions should be treated seriously, they also shouldn’t be the
be-all-end-all of a person’s existence. And it certainly isn’t something that
people should be ashamed of either.
Of course, there’s a bit of hypocrisy in that idea when it
comes to this film, along with many other films depicting specific medical
conditions. For all this film’s talk of how disabled people can still be
functional members of society, we don’t have an actual polio sufferer in the
lead role; we have an able-bodied actor passing. He isn’t the first to do so,
and unfortunately, he won’t be the last. However, while I can definitely
understand the irritation of media representations that don’t actually include
the people being represented, I don’t take as
much issue with it in these cases. Part of it is down to a familiar notion
of how just because a person is genuine doesn’t mean that they will be able to
engage with a given audience; not every film is cast by real-life examples of
what’s being dramatized, and there’s no guarantee that it would work even if
they did.
Besides, you don’t need to be in the exact same situation as
another person in order to be sympathetic towards them. Eddie Redmayne not
actually having ALS didn’t make his performance as Stephen Hawking any less
resonant, Ben Affleck not actually being autistic didn’t make his performance
in The Accountant any less badass, and Andrew Garfield not actually suffering
from polio doesn’t mean that his turn in this film is any less uplifting. As
this film goes into great detail about, willpower can take you a long way but,
eventually, everyone needs an ally. And if more people took heed of stories
like this, which emphasizes allowing others the dignity to be their own
person, there could be a whole lot more of them out there.
All in all, this is an incredibly pleasant viewing
experience. The acting is very good, helmed by Andrew Garfield at his most
inspirational to date, the visuals show that director Andy Serkis (yes, that Andy Serkis) could prove to be a
powerful force in the world of cinema beyond just his acting ability, and the
writing manages to keep things uplifting without skimping on the darker
true-to-life details. Also, on a more personal note, this film makes a nice
change of pace from the usual “well, you’re stuck with it; sucks to be you”
approach to depicting disability on-screen, especially when dealing with
someone as genuinely inspiring as the real-life Robin Cavendish.
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