Being Heumann Review: The Disability Representation We've Been Waiting For
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I've spent years writing about disability representation in the movies. (I even wrote a book about it!) No movie is perfect, but there are some that, in spite of their flaws I've come to appreciate. There are many I've outright hated. So it's understandable that I come to movies about disability with my defenses up. Sian Heder's Being Heumann had a hard bar to cross. It isn't just a movie about disability, but about one of the founding voices of the disability rights movement, Judy Heumann, and a civil action that changed how society saw disabled people. And while Heder herself isn't disabled, there's a clear awareness of how important this movie is for everyone to see.
Make no mistake, Being Heumann is a movie whose significance most abled critics and viewers won't understand. But it represents a breaking of perceptions not just on disabled people, but on the history of disability in film itself. In a landscape where Section 504 was most recently deemed unnecessary by our American government, Being Heumann is both a vital and bittersweet example of a history that's been ignored for decades.
The most follows wheelchair user and activist Judy Heumann (Ruth Madeley). In 1977, with the hopes of getting the President to sign Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, allowing disabled people to live in their homes and generally be out more in society, Heumann organizes an occupation of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare (HEW) federal building in San Francisco.
We're introduced to Judy Heumann in 1972, the camera angled at waist height. This world is one pre-ADA, something most film viewers probably won't recognize as movies today, made post-ADA, often present fantasy versions of the past wherein accessibility barriers are absent. People walk past Heumann and her cohorts, comprised of allies both abled and disabled, without a second glance. One man flips a coin into a cup of coffee one of the disabled men is drinking, presuming him homeless. It's a cold, harsh world that, too often in film, we don't see.
Heumann, irritated and looking to make a splash, tells her compatriots to "put me in the fucking street" and proceeds to stare down a bus. Mind you, this is a world without curb cuts, leaving Heumann to have to wheel in the street in order to get from A to B. This is who Heumann is, a foul-mouthed raconteur who literally looks death in the eye and dares it to claim her. But it's easy to understand why. As Heumann herself later explains, she was denied the ability to go to school, deemed a liability and a "fire hazard." Like so many of the people who protest alongside her, she wants to be seen and respected.
Rebekah Taussig's script could easily present Being Heumann as a prototypical message movie, wherein a marginalized community triumphs over injustice. That overarching theme is there, but the movie is far more nuanced if you know about what the 504 protests accomplished, what the ADA didn't, and where we are with disability rights in general today. As the movie lays out, before 504 disabled people were often institutionalized, or forced to become burdens to familial caregivers. The people that gravitate towards Heumann's cause are those seeking independence, and a means of living well in a world that's not designed for them.
I've written in my book about how Tod Browning's 1932 movie Freaks, about a troupe of circus oddities, remains the only U.S. made movie with a predominately disabled cast. Pretty sure Being Heumann officially breaks that record. When Heumann, galvanized, tells everyone they're going inside the HEW building to take it over, it's a thunderous moment of watching wheelchair users, people on crutches, the blind, etc. all try to find their way, together, in order to take it over. Having never seen so many disabled actors on one screen, let alone showing off their individual conditions, it's so powerful. And there is time devoted to how the various different communities all want the same things, yet refuse to work together. That above scene of the takeover is a beautiful example of co-operation, as wheelchair users help lead blind protesters in.
Everyone in Heumann's orbit has an interesting story to tell, from Brad Lomax (Antwan Tolliver), a disabled former Black Panther, to Andrew Pilkington's performance Hale Zukas. The script deftly flitters between stories to illustrate how varied disability is. Heumann may be the face of it – and the movie isn't shy about her privilege as a white woman – but it doesn't ignore the contributions made from disabled people of color or the disabled gay community. Madeline Delp, as Judy's right-hand woman Kitty Cone, is a scene stealer in the film. A vibrant young woman whom Heumann describes as a socialist in pearls, Delp's sensitivity is a necessary foil for Heumann. Where Judy is all barbs, Kitty is soft. Yet that doesn't mean Kitty is a pushover. She is able to match Judy's ferocity, inch for inch.
In Madeley's hands, Judy Heumann is a flawed woman. She can be acerbic, and outright mean. She encapsulates, as Lawrence Carter-Long calls it, the "messy middle" that is disability representation. Madeley gives Judy just enough vulnerability to make her a real person yet the magic is in her inner fire. That tenacity allows her to be seen, and desired, by fellow activist Jim Pechin (Jon Beavers), and the pair have a flirtation and sexual attraction that's desperately needed in the world of disabled representation. The fact that she's a bitch who isn't afraid to say the truths about disability. At one point, a television reporter (a charming Dylan O'Brien) tells Judy her story inspires people which, if you're disabled, you've heard before. Madeley's Heumann bluntly asks him, "Inspired to do something? Or just inspired?"
That sense of inspiration isn't evident in Being Heumann, more so a frustration that something as simple as signing the piece of legislation that includes Section 504 wasn't immediately signed. Mark Ruffalo's Joseph Califano, the then-Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare, is the movie's baddie. Though that might be a misleading term as there's nothing mustache-twirling about Ruffalo's Califano. He's not a bad man, just your typical man working in government, one who wants to appease those signing his paychecks and balancing a thousand disparate interests. And that's really Being Heumann's strength. These aren't people who hate disabled people but, through their actions, show they don't really care about them.
There are abled allies in the movie, all of whom do good work, from Roberta Colindrez's Joni Breves (who has some fierce chemistry with Madeley) to the aforementioned O'Brien. The latter is especially note-worthy for being the typical outsider whom, in any other movie, would be the person whose eyes we see this through. His Evan White (a name so appropriate to his character) starts out the film as the typical cringe-inducing reporter, ignoring the disabled who can't speak and generally being an embarrassment. However, he shows the allied change that often happens once people spend time in the community.
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And that's where Being Heumann could certainly be accused of being simplistic. There are elements that can seem twee. Photographers just happen to be at a protest Judy is at. There are several grand speeches and moments meant to make the fire rise up in your belly. But the movie also understands that this is a moment in time. The third act isn't a grand sweeping moment of triumph. There was far more work to be done after, as the various clips of civil disobedience leading to the passage of the Americans With Disabilities act shown during the end credits prove. And there's far more work to be done now. But this movie finally illustrates a piece of disabled history, any piece.
Being Heumann is an essential piece of disabled cinema, laying out a stark foundation for the fight for disability rights. It doesn't the heartwarming charm of director Sian Heder's previous film, CODA, but has far more power and impact. Ruth Madeley is a revelation as Judy Heumann. Do I believe this movie will compel Hollywood to tell more disabled stories? No, sadly. But the fact that this movie exists at all is kind of a miracle.
Grade: A-
Being Heumann is in theaters November 13.
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