Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story (now streaming on Max) is a docume- shit. I couldn’t even get through that sentence without getting choked up. It’s one of the saddest, most tragically ironic stories in Hollywood history: The actor famous for playing nigh-invulnerable hero Superman, who proved to be as fragile as anyone else after a horseback riding accident left him paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe without a ventilator. So of course one gets emotional in the face of this saga, especially if one is of a certain vintage, and cherishes memories of watching Superman as a kid – there are many of us. Many. Directors Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui pair interviews with Reeve’s family and close friends with archival footage of the late actor for this engrossing profile that inevitably ends in tears.
The Gist: Super/Man jumps around on the timeline of Reeve’s life, before and after that fateful day in 1995. For simplicity’s sake, we’ll start prior to that, when he came of age in New York City, a child of divorce with a father who was so terminally hard to please, he was embarrassed and disappointed to learn that his son was cast as a timeless icon of American pop culture and became the topline star of a movie that was enormously popular and made him a hero to literally millions. (Franklin Reeve originally thought his kid was cast in George Bernard Shaw’s Man and Superman, but was crestfallen to learn that it was actually just a lowbrow comic-book character.) Reeve studied acting at Juilliard and began making a name for himself in off-Broadway productions, working alongside Jeff Daniels, William Hurt and his best friend and roommate, Robin Williams.
It was Hurt who accused Reeve of being a sellout when he flew to London to audition for a Hollywood blockbuster. You know the one. But Reeve didn’t care – he wanted to work alongside Marlon Brando, one of the greatest of all time. Reeve ended up beating out the likes of Schwarzenegger and Redford for the role after director Richard Donner decided it was best to cast an unknown for the lead, and surround him with heavy hitters like Brando and Gene Hackman. Reeve’s life changed overnight (“Fame hits you like a freight train,” Daniels says). He was rich, he was famous, he was achieving a dream. He would play Superman in four movies – two creatively successful and two less so, three of them financially successful – and star in a number of other pictures that weren’t even remotely as popular (ranging from the now-cult favorite Somewhere in Time to forgettable stuff like Switching Channels).
At the apex of his Superman fame, Reeve met Gae Exton and, although they never married, they had two children, Alexandra Reeve Givens and Matthew Reeve, both interviewed here. He was always compelled by physical pursuits – he loved to ski and fly airplanes, and he amassed his muscular build once he was cast as Superman, transforming himself from a self-described “string bean” with a strenuous two-workouts-a-day routine. His fame led to infidelity, and he left Exton; Matthew says in so many words that he had a mostly absentee father who often left the family behind to work on movies or go on ski trips. After the split, Reeve met Dana Morosini, who he eventually married; they had a son, Will Reeve, in 1992.
In 1985, Reeve was cast in the TV film Anna Karenina, which required him to take horseback lessons. Thus began his equestrian passion, and after years of training, he was good enough to compete. It was during a 1995 exhibition that Reeve’s horse unexpectedly halted, throwing him out of the saddle. Reeve landed on his head, breaking his neck. He was rushed to the hospital, where he had to be resuscitated twice after his breathing stopped. He spent the next nine years of his life in a wheelchair, attached to breathing tubes and unable to move from the neck down. He needed around-the-clock care that cost $400,000 a year, which was a strain even for someone of his fame and stature. Bolstered by Dana’s tireless support, he worked through bouts of despair and dedicated the rest of his life to advocating for disabled people, eventually forming a foundation to raise money and awareness. He succumbed to complications from his quadriplegia in 2004, at age 52. Sometimes he was hopeful, sometimes he was hopeless. He was just a man – a man who did some super things, but ultimately just a man.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Celeb documentary profiles rarely show their subjects in such a vulnerable state – like Val Kilmer in Val and Roger Ebert in Life Itself.
Performance Worth Watching: The film positions Dana Reeve as a shoo-in for sainthood. I’m sure she had her moments of weakness, but we don’t see them here – we only see her unwavering hope and optimism.
Memorable Dialogue: One of the first things Dana said to Reeve after he regained consciousness and suggested doctors unplug his life support: “You are still you, and we love you.”
Sex and Skin: None.
Our Take: Go ahead. Reread “You are still you, and we love you” and try not to cry. Super/Man is full of such heart-tugging moments, whether they’re new or already familiar to us. It’s hard not to feel stricken by the irony of Reeve’s appearance at the 1996 Oscars, when the man who could no longer stand received a standing ovation (from A-listers who couldn’t hold back their tears). Or testimonials from Williams, for obvious reasons seen only in archival footage as well, reminiscing on a talk show about how people would freak out when they saw Superman and Popeye together on the street. (Glenn Close saying Williams might still be alive today if Reeve hadn’t died? That’s rather dubious.)
But the heart of the doc is the family story that Bonhoe and Ettedgui outline early on, and fill in throughout the film via extensive footage of Dana and lengthy interviews with Christopher’s children. And it’s not all fluff; Matthew plainly states that he essentially had an absentee father for many years, and it took the accident for Christopher to be present for his kids. It’s telling that the Reeve children speak so openly; it’s telling that Gae Exton sits for an interview; it’s telling that so many of these interviews point to Reeve’s existential isolation despite his need for constant supervision. The ironies of his story are crushing.
The film seeks out a complete portrait of its subject, not just a glossy one. And it’s shocking how intimate Super/Man is despite Reeve being gone for 20 years now – the Reeves’ home videos offer a treasure trove of insight, and show the man who was Superman in a remarkably real, vulnerable light, which will surely further inspire those who see him as a symbol of optimism. (The directors frequently return to an animation of a statue of Reeve floating through space, slowly cracking and revealing jagged shards of kryptonite, an obvious metaphor, but an effective one.) It only makes sense to depict him in such an unvarnished state – turns out his post-accident superheroic power was the ability to tear down facades between people with disabilities and the rest of the world.
Our Call: Super/Man is a real heartbreaker, and an intense but worthwhile retrospective. STREAM IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.