Harry Mount is deeply moved by the new film about Christopher Reeve, the superhero and paraplegic
Film Review - Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story
(12A)
Marvel superhero films are now everywhere. So it’s easy to forget what an original smash hit Superman (1978) was.
It was then the most expensive film ever ($55m), with Marlon Brando picking up $2m for playing Superman’s Dad. The film made so much money ($300m) that greedy old Marlon tried to sue for $50m for his share of the profits.
It spawned three sequels – and lodged Christopher Reeve (1952-2004) in the public mind as Superman for ever. At the time, he was an unknown 26-year-old from New Jersey - a classical actor fresh out of Juilliard and Cornell, a Mayflower descendant, a cousin of Jackie O’s and the preppy son of a scholarly writer.
Preposterously good-looking – and spookily similar to the original 1938 DC Comics Superman – Reeve was a perfect fit. His natural innocent, naïve manner suited him, too, to playing bespectacled nerd journalist, Clark Kent.
Grateful as he was for the role that changed his life, Reeve tired of the franchise, which lasted until Superman IV in 1987. His search for more serious acting led him to fine roles in The Bostonians (1984) and The Remains of the Day (1993). But he really always remained Superman.
And that’s what deepened the poignancy and tragedy of his riding accident in 1995, when his horse refused a simple three-foot jump at a cross-country event in Virginia. Reeve was flung, headfirst, to the ground, his hands caught in the bridle. And so Superman became a paraplegic, paralysed from the neck down.
This moving film deftly jumps from his pre-accident superstardom to his paralysis. Blissfully free of any commentator, it relies on interviews with him, before and after the fall, his family and superstar friends – including Robin Williams, Whoopi Goldberg, Glenn Close and John Kerry.
Reeve was a fitness fanatic before the accident – forever pushed by his ambitious, superior father, who was surprisingly pleased at the news of his Superman role but only because he thought he’d got a part in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman (1903). So Reeve fought and fought to return movement to his limbs and get off his ventilator, with some very limited success.
The agony is in fact dialled up by the optimism of Reeve and his wife, Dana. How valiantly they work to revive his once-mighty limbs – and what efforts they make to push the American government to boost investment in spinal injury medicine and stem cell research. But all to little avail for Reeve personally, even if there have been medical advances since his death. Despite his round-the-clock care (costing $400,000 a year, which he could only just afford), he slipped into a coma in 2004, dying aged only 52.
Reeve’s three charming children – who’ve inherited his million-dollar bone structure – have continued his work to improve spinal medicine. They all exude his admirable strain of American optimism – of the idea that catastrophes only bring fresh challenges.
But, still, a deep sadness underpins the whole film. What happens when the American Dream becomes an American Nightmare? That nightmare deepens when Reeve’s widow died of lung cancer (she never smoked) only 18 months after his death, at only 44. Their son, Will Reeve, now a TV correspondent on Good Morning America, is the spitting image of his Dad – Superson. But, for all his gleaming, film-star looks and white-teeth grin, and for all the support of his half-siblings, he admits, on the verge of tears, that, since his parents’ deaths 20 years ago, he has always been alone.
Even the touches of Hollywood schmaltz – like Reeve’s Get Well Soon cards from Paul McCartney and Katharine Hepburn – are moving. And the directors, Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, wisely let the interviews speak for themselves. Their only artistic addition – showing the emerald crystals of Kryptonite, Superman’s hated poison, creeping over a vulnerable body – works well.
You may choose to share their optimistic message: the film’s poster declares, ‘Once you choose hope, anything is possible.’ But that isn’t true – Superman never walked again. Still, it’s heart-breakingly gripping to watch him try.
