Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (2024)

PG-13 for language, including the f-bomb.  The movie also grapples with euthanasia as a concept.  This movie is about Christopher Reeve's tragedy in context of his films.  While it often glorifies Reeve for his commitment to both the arts and the rights of the disabled, it also talks about his romances, which leads him to abandoning his wife and kids.  While he never outright shuts them out of his life, his family remember him being distant and a bit selfish when it came to their needs.  

DIRECTORS:  Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui

The trailer almost made me cry, guys.  Of course I was going to see this.  And, I'd like to point out, this might be the closest I've gotten to outright weeping.  I'll tell you the exact moment --and I will also apologize for butchering the line if I get it wrong.  Dana Reeve tells the recently paralyzed Christopher Reeve that "You are still you and I will always love you."  That stopped him from committing suicide.  Come on. That's going to be one of those moments that is going to get to me.

I love this documentary, yet I almost hate it at the same time.  I'm a complex dude.  As Christopher Reeve was complex, that means I'm allowed to be complex too, okay?  I've not been subtle about it.  The original Superman: The Movie is one of my favorite films. I'm unashamed of that.  (Okay, I'm a little ashamed.  I'll never put it in my Top Four because it makes me feel basic.  See?  Complex!) The reason that I watched this movie is because I'm such a Christopher Reeve Superman fan.  I love a lot of different interpretations of Superman.  Not all of them.  You probably know which one I'm talking about.  But when I think of Superman, I think of Christopher Reeve.  This is a documentary made by the new DC Studios.  It's literally called Super/Man.  They're not avoiding the tie to the character that Christopher Reeve portrayed in films.  It's the role he's most famous for.  (I originally put "probably" as a sign of respect, but it undoes the argument. Christopher Reeve will most notably be famous for Superman, despite the fact that there are Somewhere in Time fans out there.)  

But I want this documentary to exist without the connection to Superman. I thought I wanted Superman to be the center of the piece.  I really did.  After all, like I just stated, the reason that I watched the documentary about Christopher Reeve is because he played Superman.  But the constant reminder about the Superman imagery almost undoes the story of Christopher Reeve himself.  

The way that the film is structured is intentionally chaotic.  There's an audio clip that the movie plays that has Reeve talking about what his thoughts were after the accident.  (For those who don't know or don't remember, Christopher Reeve was paralyzed from the neck down after falling off a horse.  I think that's pretty common knowledge, but I can't assume anything because not everyone is the biggest Superman fan like I am.  Things that seem like common knowledge to me might be incredibly niche.) The quote says something like, "When I woke up, I thought about my whole life in those moments, but the order was all scrambled."  The directors chose to run with that and told his story out of order.  In reality, we're kind of looking at two different time periods in his life until the two meet up.  There's the pre-accident Christopher Reeve and the post-accident Christopher Reeve.  Because the directors embrace the quote, there's a bit of intentional chaos to the presentation of those two moments.  I don't blame them one bit.  It's entirely effective. 

But one of the elements of the pre-accident Christopher Reeve was Reeve's paradoxical opinions about Superman.  If there is one cautionary tale about Hollywood, it's Reeve and Superman. George Reeves had the same relationship with the same character.  Both men were launched into the public eye with their portrayal of the Man of Steel. It made them famous.  The problem was that they were both instantly typecast as Superman forever.  It was hard for either them to get work that gained them equal notoriety.  The difference between Reeves and Reeve (I know!  The odds!  I'm not going to even get into how George Reeves also met a tragic end...) is that Christopher Reeve, as angry as he was about being typecast, didn't seem to hate the character.  George Reeves openly thought that Superman was kids' stuff.  Christopher Reeve seemed attached to the role and understood that he was the caretaker of something larger than himself.  That's what makes the movie fascinating.  It's why I always liked Reeve.  He was incredibly frustrated that he couldn't go anywhere and not be seen as Superman, but also loved much of the material that he got to play with.  (I mean, until Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace.) 

But when the movie separates him from being Superman, ironically, that's when it flies.  (Pun intended.) The chair is a lot.  One of the movies that I need to watch again is The Diving Bell and the Butterfly.  There's something so haunting about the notion of being stuck.  Reeve was this guy who prided himself on his athleticism.  He's not me.  The most I do is the treadmill, and that's because my body hates me and wants to gain all of the weight all of the time.  Reeve was a guy who constantly tried to suck the marrow out of life and that is conveyed to the point of detriment.  Like many of these Hollywood documentaries, the story focuses on how this actor had a darker life than people would have guessed.  Christopher Reeve was a man who --I apologize for the shorthand for a complex relationship --hated his father.  Throughout his life, he would harken back to "At least I'm not like him." His father was a harsh man who wanted nothing to do with Christopher.  (I hate using his first name alone, but I'm talking about the relationship between a father and son, both of whom have the same last name.)   But in trying to not be his father, he ended up distancing himself from his children much in the same way.

When he's paralyzed, as awful as everything is, he has almost the opportunity to stop putting his father as the cause of all of his misery.  I don't know what the man thought.  I have this documentary.  I have special features on Superman DVDs.  I have my obsessive fan personality.  But I don't know what the man really thought.  But the movie embraces this tragedy as something that also had a silver lining.  His accident forced this man, who seemed to be constantly running, to stop.  One thing that the movie makes clear.  Christopher Reeve was incredibly driven.  Whatever he was doing, he'd do 110% as a means to impress a man who didn't care.  The same is true of his commitment to getting out of that chair.  Listen, I know how the story ends.  I know that he dies at a young age, never walking again.  But there's a moment, when he's moving is foot in a pool, that I wondered if there was more to the story than what I knew.  (The answer is, "No". He would never get off the ventilator.)  But that obsessive personality needed family.  It was that understanding that people need others in their lives to get through the horrors of the every day might be my favorite part of the story.

But the movie does one things incredibly well.  I've heard the name "Dana Reeve" because of her work with the foundation.  Today, the foundation is known and the Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation and that's probably for a good reason.  Christopher Reeve, for all of his heroism (and I do believe that he was heroic in many ways) was a very selfish man.  I say that with all due respect.  His children seemingly would admit as much.  He wanted more and more out of life and sometimes that meant putting others on the backburner.  But he also cared about humanity to such a level that gave him purpose.  Again, deeply complicated individual if your heart can bleed for people, but also give them a wide berth so you can do your own thing.  But Dana Reeve?  She's a good egg from moment one.

The one consistent story throughout the film is that while Christopher Reeve was a beautiful human being who was flawed, everyone saw Dana Reeve as someone who lacked Chris's selfishness.  She made friends with the mother of Chris's first children.  She stayed with Christopher and, while giving him what he wanted much of the time, put healthy limits on this man who didn't know how to proceed forward.  Her children and those around her seemed in awe of what she was able to accomplish.  Honestly, what I got most out of this story was the story of Dana Reeve, who led a silent tragic life of her own without the mental scarring to be a True Hollywood Story.  Her story is one of true love and what it should look like.  If they ever make a documentary out of my life, I really do hope that it comes across more as Dana's story than Christopher's.

But here's where the Super/Man title really works.  As much as I'm talking about the heartbreaking stuff that Christopher Reeve did, it's all in context of the fact that he was in a constant state of inspiring people.  I have to remember that DC Studios made this and that my confirmation bias is pretty fast and loose sometimes.  But I always said that the reason that Superman resonates with me so much isn't because of superpowers.  I think that people who don't like Superman tend to be put off by a guy who can do anything.  But what Superman and Christopher Reeve had most in common was their inspire humanity to be their best selves.  Christopher Reeve, when he was in that chair, stressed that he would almost die regularly when a tube got loose or kinked.  He would struggle to breathe and hope that an aid got to him in time to fix the machine.  He's incredibly fragile and yet would do these events that would exhaust him beyond most people's breaking points.  He helped a little boy get off a ventilator.  As selfish as I accuse him of being, I probably would have wallowed in my own self-pity.  He changed the world for the better.  Sure, there are people who are anti-stem cell.  I get it.  But we are in a stage in science where adult stem cells are the norm and people still complain, so I just have to empathize with a man who wanted hope.

Before I close up, I feel like I should write a bit about Robin Williams.  In a way, this documentary is almost a Robin Williams documentary.  Again, for those not in the know, Robin Williams and Christopher Reeve were roommates in college.  They were best friends.  But we also hopefully know that Robin Williams ended his own life. There's even a line by one of the talking heads (I want to say Meryl Streep?) that said, "Had Christopher Reeve not died, Robin Williams might be here today."  I have such thoughts about Robin Williams and they are always changing.  I don't know these people.  They are celebrities.  I know about them from their fame, but I will never know these people personality.  It's borderline a crime that I write about them.  Please, understand, I am just writing for a love of writing and for a need to find an outlet to express opinions.  Do you know what I love about this doc when it comes to Robin Williams?  It makes me want to hug Robin Williams and thank him for being a good friend.  Yeah, this is a celebration of Christopher Reeve.  But the movie does almost a better job at celebrating Dana Reeve and Robin Williams.

I'm grateful for that.

This documentary does mostly right things.  Do I wish that it was divorced a bit from Superman?  Yes and no.  I don't know.  It seems to make a complex person Superman in all of our hearts.  I get that the irony is right there.  We all saw that the image of the invulnerable man can't even get out of his chair to stand up.  But Reeve was more than just Superman and, as much as I adore the character, I wish people would see that.  The movie addresses it in what it says, but not what it feels.