On May 27, 1995, Christopher Reeve, who gained international fame for playing the title character in the original “Superman” films, was riding at the Commonwealth Park Equestrian Center in Culpeper, Virginia, when his horse refused to jump a 3-foot-high, W-shaped fence. Reeve fell and broke his two upper vertebrae. He barely survived, becoming quadriplegic and nearly immobile, and would endure severe breathing problems for the rest of his life. Headlines around the world treated this as a great irony: Superman could not only no longer fly, he could barely move. It was an understandable, well-intentioned, but ultimately dehumanizing way to put it.
The new documentary “Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” pushes against that presentation of Reeve’s accident, going out of its way not to treat Reeve’s story as that of a man who had everything but suddenly lost it. Instead, it presents his life as a tale of almost superhuman resilience and determination: A beautiful, athletic movie star who was struck down in his prime and then remade himself into an activist for people with disabilities. And he would also advocate for funding for science that could alleviate the suffering of others with spinal cord injuries.
Co-directed by Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, “Super/Man” doesn’t shy away from the hard, physical facts of what happened. But in the end, the approach cements the film as a work of integrity. It consistently refuses to go down the much easier route that previous accounts of Reeve’s life have taken: presenting his rise to stardom and attempt to outdo Superman, and then presenting his life after the accident as a kind of inspirational postscript (which we don’t dwell on because it would make audiences sad).
The filmmakers aren’t sugar-coating anything here. They’re laying out what happened: not just the bare facts of Reeve’s life before and after, but the emotional impact on his friends (including his roommate in the Juilliard acting program, Robin Williams, who was like a brother to him); his wife Dana, a superheroic wife who cared for him, inspired him, and joined in his activism; his first two children, Matthew and Alexandra; the children’s mother, Gae Exton (Reeve’s on-again, off-again girlfriend for a decade); and, most poignantly, little Will Reeve, his son with Dana. Will was a toddler when the accident happened, and he spent his third birthday without his father because Reeve was in the hospital fighting for his life. There are plenty of touching home video clips in the documentary, but the snippets showing that beautiful little boy (who was then too young to understand the magnitude of his father’s suffering) are at the top.
There’s plenty of information about Reeve’s acting career, especially his struggle to reconcile his beloved portrayal of Superman with his desire to prove himself in other kinds of roles (which he did in “Street Smart,” “Deathtrap” and “Somewhere in Time,” even though audiences didn’t flock to him like they did when he was in the cape and tights). But the filmmakers intersperse this with an account of his accident, his survival and his subsequent attempts to manage his pain.
The film feels a bit rushed or compacted; at times, you want it to live inside a moment for longer than it does. Ilan Eskheri’s score, which seems to aim for effects comparable to John Williams’ “Superman” score, is too omnipresent, intrusive and loud at times; it often seems to be trying to tell us how to feel, something unnecessary in such an inherently inspiring story.
But overall, this is a thoughtful and remarkable piece of nonfiction, working in an accessible, commercial style but going out of its way not to take the easy way out in any aspect of Reeve’s story. It’s most impressive when the camera is pointed at Reeve’s colleagues (including Glenn Close, Jeff Daniels and Whoopi Goldberg) as they discuss Reeve’s attempts to reinvent himself as a visibly paralyzed actor (he did a TV remake of “Rear Window”) and as a director. It’s doubly admirable when his children are allowed to tell the story of their father’s perseverance and the dedication of Dana Reeve, who is presented as someone entirely devoted to his physical and emotional care. Documentaries that really know how to listen are increasingly rare, and this is one of them.
The film deserves a wide audience and will hopefully redouble efforts to find medical solutions that can alleviate the suffering of people with spinal cord injuries or perhaps one day make them a thing of the past.