USA,
1991, 106 min
Shown in 1992
CREDITS
- dir
-
Neal Jiménez, Michael Steinberg
- prod
-
Gail Anne Hurd, Marie Cantin
- scr
-
Neal Jimenez
- cam
-
Mark Plummer
- editor
-
Jeff Freeman
- cast
-
Eric Stoltz, Wesley Snipes, William Forsythe, Helen Hunt, Elizabeth Pena
- source
-
Samuel Goldwyn Company
OTHER
Writer/codirector Jimenez offers a quasi-autobiographical portrait of what happens when your world is transformed in an instant. One moment you’re a successful writer, in love. The next you’re in a wheelchair with your neck broken, an inhabitant of a physical rehab center. The shock of paralysis is what novelist Joel Garcia must contend with when he awakens to find he has become permanently disabled in an accident. Garcia is thrust into a ward with a group of men of vastly different backgrounds. Bloss, a racist biker engaged in a lawsuit against those he considers responsible for his accident and Raymond, a hard-living black man with a troubled marriage are the most vocal and combative fellow patients. The adjustments which each must make to a grim reality, where wheelchair battles replace fist fights, passion and fantasy redefine the sexual ego and humor masks the agony of loss, make for a dramatic and moving tale of courage and bonding. Their relationships modulate over a course which takes them through misadventure, misunderstanding, depression and debauchery, and ultimately to solidarity. Jimenez (who also wrote River's Edge and For the Boys) and Steinberg are sterling storytellers, describing with humor and insight the intimate aspects of life in a wheelchair, while uplifting us with their vision of the power of the human spirit.
—Geoffrey Gilmore, Sundance Film Festival
FACTOID #162
The Stand-In (1985), Nina Takes a Lover (1994), Dream for an Insomniac (1996), Dream with the Fishes (1997), Teknolust (2002) and Dopamine(2003) were not only screened at Festival but were also shot in San Francisco.
