BEFORE: My movie schedule's booked up until 9/11, I can't take a day off - but then once I reach that benchmark, I'm going to have to space out the rest of the September films, but this was going to happen eventually, as mathematically there are just 60 films more to watch this year, and 115 days to do that. So I'm looking at a lot of down-time, it's just a matter of when. But sticking to the schedule allows me to send out an ever-rarer Birthday SHOUT-out to Dean-Charles Chapman, who carries over today from "Blinded by the Light". If you're not familiar with his filmography, he had a prominent role in "1917" but I've also seen him in "The King", "The Commuter" and "Before I Go to Sleep". Anyway, he turns 26 today, so just a few more years of playing high-schoolers to go...
I got out of the premiere screening of "A Haunting in Venice" late last night, because I had to lock up. So you can add that to the list of screenings where I've worked the event, but I DID NOT watch the film, too much to do in the front of house. So my goal was to get out of there without learning the identity of the murderer, because I'm sure I'll watch the film sometime next year (2023 is all booked up) and as much as I love giving hints, I hate spoilers and I particularly hate having movies spoiled for me. No stars were in attendance because of the strike, but I did get to eat some leftover hors d'oeuvres for dinner and walked away with a few bags of popcorn, so that's a win-win.
THE PLOT: The inspiring story of Robin and Diana Cavendish, an adventurous couple who refuse to give up in the face of a devastating disease.
AFTER: Oh, great, I thought - another film about somebody with a terminal illness. I've covered this already this year, from "The Fault in Our Stars" to "Paddleton", but this one had a bit of charm all its own, it wasn't as depressing as it COULD have been. Again there's the "right to die" argument, as Robin Cavendish ended up deciding when his own life should end, but before that, he lived a lot longer than most people expected him to.
The disease here is polio, which he contracted in Kenya in 1958 - and as he was paralyzed, his diagnosis at that time was, more or less, a death sentence. Most people didn't "get better" after they got paralyzed by that disease and were unable to breathe on their own. With the crude respirators available at that time, it was almost a given that at some point the machine would fail, or the patient wouldn't be able to swallow, or they'd just lose the will to go on with a machine breathing for them. However over time and with the encouragement of his wife Diana, he did regain the ability to swallow, and eventually to talk, and she kept his spirits up so that he had to will to live and watch his son grow up.
He eventually got around on a wheelchair, designed by friends with engineering experience, that had a respirator (ventilator?) attached, and while most patients with his condition were relegated to iron lungs, Robin was able to travel with the aid of a custom-designed van, which could also be flown in a cargo plane to other countries - so he was able to see some more of the world, and travel around as an advocate for the rights of the disabled. And he teamed up with a medical organization to finance more of his special wheelchairs to allow more patients to travel around like he did. While in Germany he learned that the hospitals for the disabled were run by the same government department as the prisons, and so he urged the doctors to treat their disabled patients in a different way, to encourage them to leave the hospital and be more mobile with the aid of technology.
Other than his farewell party, that's really the whole story - it's bleak for a while, but then there's a turn for the better as Robin and his wife decide to make changes to improve their lives, and by extension the lives of many other people who shared his condition. Good for him - Robin Cavendish's son, Jonathan, grew up to work in the film industry, and was a producer of this film in order to get his father's story told. Good for him, too.
This film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2017 - not exactly 6 years ago, but close enough - this year's edition of TIFF starts TODAY, Sept. 7, 2023.
I've got no issues with Andrew Garfield here, but I'm reminded about how Eddie Redmayne won an Oscar two years before this film was released for portraying Stephen Hawking in "The Theory of Everything", and I maintain that I can't quite justify awarding an Oscar to someone for essentially sitting motionless in a chair and not speaking for half of the film. Honestly, that feels like the opposite of acting, if you ask me - surely there must have been someone else eligible that year whose performance included moving around and, you know, speaking.
This one hits a bit close to home because my mother's back in a rehab facility, after moving down to North Carolina to live with my sister. She's got mobility issues, in addition to being 82 she had an entire lifetime of being overweight and not getting enough exercise. Before the move she wasn't elevating her legs enough, and she got an infection, meaning that as soon as she got moved down there in a special van, she had to right into the hospital, and now she's trying to get healthy enough to move out. I wish I could do more for her, but I could barely take care of her for an afternoon, I just don't have what it takes. My sister has more time and might be able to finally instill some discipline in her, but it's an uphill battle at this point to keep her moving and active.
Also starring Andrew Garfield (last seen in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Claire Foy (last seen in "The Electrical Life of Louis Wain"), Tom Hollander (last seen in "The Promise"), Hugh Bonneville (last seen in "The Gathering Storm"), Ben Lloyd-Hughes, Ed Speelers (last seen in "The House that Jack Built"), Steven O'Donnell (last seen in "Far and Away"), Miranda Raison (last seen in "Artemis Fowl"), Stephen Mangan (last seen in "Birthday Girl"), Jonathan Hyde (last seen in "Crimson Peak"), Amit Shah (last seen in "Last Christmas"), Penny Downie (last seen in "W.E."), Diana Rigg (last seen in "Last Night in Soho"), David Butler (last seen in "Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom"), Andre Jacobs (ditto), John Herbert (ditto), Adam Neill (ditto), Camilla Rutherford (last seen in "Tom & Jerry"), Terry Norton, Charles Streeter (last seen in "The Nutcracker and the Four Realms"), Emily Bevan, Roger Ashton-Griffiths (last seen in "The Portrait of a Lady"), David Wilmot (last seen in "The Wonder"), Patrick Godfrey (last seen in "The Duchess"), Lorraine Ashbourne (also carrying over from "Blinded by the Light"), Harry Attwell (last seen in "Genius"), Tom Turner (last seen in "Welcome to the Punch"), Marina Bye (last seen in "How to Talk to Girls at Parties"), Tony Caprari (last seen in "Lord of War"), Sylvester Groth (last seen in "The 355")
RATING: 6 out of 10 bottles of vintage wine
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