Warm
Springs (2005)
biography
directed
by : Joseph Sargent
featuring
: Kenneth Branagh - Cynthia Nixon - Jane Alexander - Kathy Bates - Tim
Blake Nelson
running
time : 2 hours
In the tradition of
Dore Schary's Sunrise At Campobello, the made-for-cable biopic Warm Springs
focuses on one of the least publicized aspects in the life of America's
most-publicized (and longest-serving) president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt,
here played brilliantly by British actor Kenneth Branagh. Like Sunrise,
Warm Springs uses as its starting point the year 1921, when the 39-year-old
Roosevelt was permanently paralyzed from the waist down by an attack of
polio. But whereas the earlier film concentrated on FDR's battle to return
to public life despite his handicap, this film zeroes in on Roosevelt's
efforts to cure himself of his affliction. Having heard of the therapeutic
value of the waters of Warm Springs in rural Georgia, Roosevelt makes a
pilgrimage to the area, which is little more than a swamp surrounded by
dilapidated shacks. Though he never experiences the "miracle" cure that
he so desperately seeks, Roosevelt is instrumental in the conversion of
Warm Springs from a backwater hellhole to a streamlined, ultra-efficiently
managed polio-treatment center, a virtual mecca for hundreds of thousands
of others who had been crippled by the debilitating illness. And in the
process, he also brings hope, optimism, and racial enlightenment to the
poverty-stricken, multiethnic citizens of Warm Springs. Even more significantly,
FDR removes the stigma of polio from the public consciousness, forever
abolishing the misguided notions that the disease adversely affected the
brain, that it could be spread merely by physical contact, or that it represented
celestial "punishment" of the victim (it is noted, however, that Roosevelt
was always careful never to reveal the true extent of his immobility nor
his atrophied legs in public, feeling that it might diminish the nation's
image of an "invulnerable" Commander in Chief).
Also in
the cast are Cynthia Nixon as Roosevelt's devoted wife, Eleanor; Jane Alexander
as his over-protective mother Sara; David Paymer as his crusty chief aide
Louis Howe; Kathy Bates as his no-nonsense physical therapist Helena Mahoney;
and Tim Blake Nelson as Tom Loyless, the man in charge of Warm Springs.
Originally telecast by HBO on April 30, 2005, Warm Springs was the last
directorial effort of the late Joseph Sargent.