Review: SUPER/MAN: THE CHRISTOPHER REEVE STORY

Christopher Reeve is Superman! To those of a certain age that statement is fact. I remember having a Superman action figure as a kid. That action figure looked like Reeve because, in my mind, Reeve was Superman.

When I saw they were making a documentary about Reeve’s life, of course I was up for it. He always seemed like a nice guy and I wanted to know more. I was hoping the documentary would be about him as Superman, I was wrong though.

The Story

There is obviously a narrative for this film and it’s this:

Reeve’s rise to becoming a film star follows with a near-fatal horse-riding accident in 1995 that left him paralyzed from the neck down. After the accident, he became an activist for spinal cord injury treatments and disability rights.

I started out thinking it was odd that they started with the accident. The entire thing is heartbreaking and it was not an easy watch. Over the next hour and a half, they tell the story of how the accident, that should have killed him, turned an ordinary actor into a super man.

Reeve

He was a serious actor who had the world at his feet. He was sharing a place with Robin Williams and studying to be a theatre actor. While in a play with Jeff Daniels and William Hurt, he got a call to audition for a superhero movie.

Hurt was dead against him doing it. He said that if he wanted to be taken seriously as an actor, he should stick with the theatre. Reeve went to the audition and the rest is history. Christopher Reeve became Superman and shot himself to superstardom.

The film says that he got weightlifting tips from David Prowse, who was a former bodybuilder. Reeve bulked up, donned the cape, and then they made him fly. There’s a great interview, with Richard Donner, about the first time they saw him fly.

Family Man

Reeve had a tough upbringing. His parents divorced and remarried when he was at a young age and it had an effect on him. He never wanted to see his kids go through that and he was a great father. Even though filming schedules were rough, he spent as much time as he could with his family.

He was far from perfect and things didn’t work out with his first girlfriend (they never married), but he did adopt a new love and a new family. He tried his best. Pretty sure that’s all a family can ask for.

In a horrible twist of fate, the man that his new wife married was taken away from her and she was left with a man paralyzed from the neck down. It was a devastating blow to the family, to friends, and to the entire world. Superman was badly injured.

Campaigning

Call me pathetic, but I couldn’t live like Reeve had to after the accident. His career, his life, was taken away from him and he was trapped in a shell that he had no power over. Reeve did fight back though and was determined to walk again.

Watching him go through the rehabilitation is horrible. You can see the pain and frustration he had to endure, but he kept on going and kept on fighting. He was mostly housebound, until the Oscars in 1996,  he had the confidence to get back in the public eye.

Watching that clip, I’m crying again now. Because of this appearance, he started to get back to public life and began campaigning for people with the same condition. The Christopher Reeve Foundation is still up and running today. Raising money to help people around the world.

Overall

I was not emotionally prepared for this documentary. It’s horrible to watch, but a must-see for any Superman fan. Just be prepared, I needed more tissues than I did when I found Mr Skins website and links to all of Jesicca Chastain’s nude scenes. I’m sorry for the joke, but I need something to break the tension.

Seeing Reeve transform himself into Superman, but then also try to shake off the typecasting, was incredible. He loved Superman, but he wanted to act and do more serious roles. Who knows where he would have been today if it wasn’t for that awful twist of fate.

You need to watch Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story, but just be ready for it. It’s fascinating, insightful, and heartbreaking, but helps you see that Reeve was a real-life super man.

The Christoper Reeve Story is in some cinemas at the moment.

Check out our behind-the-scenes article about Superman. 

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