I loved Crip Camp a few years ago. For those who don’t remember, it’s a truly inspiring tale about a bunch of physically disabled teens attending a summer camp in upstate New York in the 1970s. At that time, most were living alone and didn’t know others like them existed. That bonding experience was so formative it propelled participants, like Judith “Judy” Heumann, to devote their whole lives to making lives better for each other. In other Sian Heder words, Being Heumann for a change.
Judy (Ruth Madeley) at the begging of her movie is in New York City, begging the Secretary of Health Education and Welfare to sign Section 504 of the Disability Rights Act of 1973. This would create a short window of time where the government would enforce buildings having to accommodate handicapped individuals with things like ramps or elevators. Nixon resigns, and new Secretary Joseph A. Califano Jr. (Mark Ruffalo) becomes the target of Judith’s daily calls. Hesitant at the giant cost he’ll be blamed for, Califano shuts her out of the San Francisco facility during a giant protest on April 5, 1977 across the country. Pissed off, Judy rallies other supporters like friend/fellow disabled person Kitty Cone (Madeline Delp), lesbian Joni Breves (Roberta Colindrez), Black Panthers Brad Lomax (Antwan Tolliver) and Chuck Jackson (Ray Fisher), aspiring reporter Evan White (Dylan O’Brien), and able bodied supporters of the cause like Jim Pechin (Jon Beavers) to occupy the Secretary offices and sit in until Califano signs Section 504.
Like she did with CODA, Sian Heder wins you over with having the non normal in society be normal. During that sit-in, Heder reminds us over and over again these people with disabilities are the same as their more able twenty and thirtysomething counterparts. This sit in is like Adult Jened for them: we’re getting hookups, 1970s hash smoking, wheelchair races through the halls, pillow forts, you know, what you might do on a college trip or bachelor party. Stuck inside, they all chat with one another, busting each other’s balls and doing the classic condescending remarks game. Heder realizes that the stakes are pretty clear for this community and the movie, and her job is to give people a diverse microcosm of the people who would have been at sit ins like this, and make them feel like people we would be friends with or know of in our own lives to help us all invest in the cause too. So when we see a cold police force grabbing these people from their chairs or not letting them get up a ramp out of fear of confrontation, we feel as angry and saddened as the protesters do.
Unlike a more caustic movie studio, Being Heumann actually casts real physically disabled actors for the leading roles. Ruth Madeley is wonderfully cast for Judith. After Crip Camp, I got a decent idea what Judy would be like for a politican, and know people in my life like her. Ruth is that person: she’s one of those people who will never have fun the way the people do around her, because that’s not her job. Madeley sells that mixture of pure anger, unwavering belief, and simmering melancholy that she’s always outside looking in because she has to inspire to get the real job done. Her opposite is Madeline Delp as Kitty Cone, the good cop to Judith’s bad cop. She’s the calm downer person, warm and loving, like a mom who makes lives better but never gets ther do. The Delp and Madeley’s push and pull keeps the goings on inside the government building interesting and relatable, with their battle more a polite game of wills going on behind the scenes. We get to know a few of the protesters as well: in particular I loved Antwan Tolliver as real life disabled Black Panther member Brad Lomax, Charlie Rush Reese as Dennis, a blind but sweet innocent in this, and Andrew Pilkington, who could only talk through a head pointer on a letter board but says some of the funniest lines in the movie and has some of the most harrowing moments when he can’t say how he feels. The “big” names in the cast are happy to be there to support, playing against type: Dylan O’Brien as a nice reporter for a change, and Mark Ruffalo the image of entitled entrenched governmental cowardice and power.
I don’t think Being Heumann is gonna have a CODA level supernova to the Oscars race. But I do hope it’ll make a casting director see Ruth Madeley, Madeline Delp, Andrew Pilkington, and any of the other physically disabled cast as just another actor in your pool that you can choose from outside of Law and Order guest spots where they get murdered. How about taking that pointer and getting Andrew Pilkington a dagger, turn him into a Liam Neeson type action star. Now THAT’s an idea.