‘Super/Man' is an Honest Homage to a Real-Life Hero | Review

The film never loses sight of the point: The Superman character, themes, and imagery are merely metaphors for Reeve himself.

Bring tissues.

That was top of mind as my wife and I entered Regal Cinemas to watch an early screening of Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story on September 25 — which would have been Reeve’s 72nd birthday. That date made the event all the more significant, but it would have been special to us regardless. Everyone there was old enough to have grown up with Reeve as their Superman, and it was immediately apparent that it was going to be an emotional experience.

Regal did us no favors, either. One of the previews was for the very film we were about to see, which ensured that we were a theater full of grown adults sobbing like babies before the movie even started.

I was ten years old when I saw Christopher Reeve in a wheelchair for the first time. It was the premiere of his Barbara Walters interview, which aired just four months after the horse riding accident that paralyzed him from the neck down. I was inconsolable. I had of course already heard about what happened, but the picture of him in my mind up until then was still Superman — stoic, stalwart, and soaring over the Earth, flashing us that charismatic and comforting smile. Reality hit me hard as I saw Reeve looking so aged and frail, breathing through a tube, struggling to get his words out. His fragility was a heartbreaking contrast to the image of him I had known my whole life.

The beauty of Super/Man, however, is that it shies away from neither vision of Reeve. In fact, it leans into and emphasizes both — making the film’s title, complete with the forward slash splitting the two sides of Reeve’s public identity, as well as the two most prominent phases of his life, quite literal.

Through home movies, archival footage, interviews with Reeve’s colleagues, friends, and family, and even audiobook narration from Reeve himself, Super/Man interweaves two parallel narratives: That of a young actor who achieved success portraying a hero on screen, and that of a man whose accident and subsequent activism would make him a hero in real life.

Directors Ian Bonhôte and Peter Ettedgui, who also brought us McQueen and Rising Phoenix, do a masterful job digging into and showcasing Reeve’s humanity throughout the film’s one hour and forty-four minute runtime. Even as we’re guided through his early life and rise to fame, the filmmakers never fail to deal with the complexity of the man beneath the cape. We’re shown Reeve’s trauma after his parents’ multiple divorces; the effects of his desperate longing for his father’s approval; and his subsequent fear of commitment and antagonism towards marriage, which strained his relationship with his first two children and ended his relationship with their mother.

And as we move through the post-Superman years — when Reeve struggled to be taken seriously as an actor; when he met, married, and started a family with his wife Dana; and when he suffered the accident that would upend his life — we’re not shielded from any of the difficulty or pain he experienced, or the flaws it exposed. Far from being another clichéd hagiography, Super/Man courageously depicts Reeve being all too human, succumbing to all the depression, despondency, and despair that comes with being in his situation. This is at times difficult to watch, but it’s also necessary to truly contextualize and underscore the eventual dutifulness, determination, and drive that would redefine him for so many of us.

Importantly, the film also shows that overcoming this kind of adversity takes much more than one man’s will. It is often through the ones we love — and those who love us — that we can summon that will at all. Early on we recognize Dana Reeve’s towering presence, both in the film and in Christopher Reeve’s life. His optimism, and indeed his very desire to go on living, was a direct result of Dana’s influence and support. They also made a miraculous team. Together, they founded and ran what would become The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation, with Christopher focusing on awareness, activism, and funding research for a cure while Dana devoted her energy to care, compassion, and dignity for those currently living with disability.

Hope and heroism are the strongest and most prominent themes in Super/Man, and it’s easy to see why. Superman is a hero that symbolizes hope, after all. Bonhôte and Ettedgui deftly draw those themes out, not only by tastefully incorporating footage from Reeve’s Superman films, but also by fusing John Williams’ iconic score into the original music composed by Ilan Eshkeri. This could easily feel excessive or exploitative, but Super/Man executes it brilliantly because it never loses sight of the point: The Superman character, themes, and imagery are merely metaphors for Reeve himself.

As a lifelong fan, I’ve often argued that Superman’s greatest power isn’t his ability to fly, shoot lasers out of his eyes, or lift school buses over his head. Rather, it is his capacity to inspire, to kindle within us our desire to be better and braver than we are. Similarly, the greatest strength of Super/Man is its emphasis on Reeve as a model of perseverance and a source of inspiration — a hero in his own right. Throughout the film we see people moved and motivated by Reeve’s words and deeds, people who have benefited from the funding and research secured by Reeve’s foundation, and people who have been galvanized by Reeve’s spirit into becoming forces for good in the world.

That is the mark of true heroism, and walking out of the theater that night with all those other teary-eyed strangers, it was clearer than ever that Christopher Reeve — the actor, activist, and human being — is one of the greatest heroes we’ve ever had.

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“Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story” opens nationwide October 11. Rated PG-13 for some strong language and thematic elements.

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