Like a colossus

This is Christopher Reeve's story - or a part of his huge story - encapsulated. It's all there in microcosm: the grief, the anger, the adjustment - and he still leaves room for the storyline (which I think is a touch better than the original).

If you've read Christopher Reeve's autobiography ('Still Me'), and in the light of his very recent death, this film is almost unbearable. I don't cry at films (well, not since 'Bambi'), but I was in tears. This man is just so *big*. He takes a cool, intelligent and honest look at himself and makes decisions in the light of reason, untramelled by notions of gods and fairies. When most people would be railing at the horror of an unjust fate, he was redesigning his life and working out how he could still be a part of the world.

Then he makes a film. Into it he puts not only his tragedy itself, and his own courage and dignity, but also all the less honourable things that he sees in himself: the inevitable selfishness of the long-term invalid, the unthinking irritability, the prurient desire to take part vicariously in other people's fuller lives.

This is that film. But, great as the theme of his tragedy is, he doesn't let it override the storyline. That's how big a man he is - was.

Watch it for the story. Watch it to know how it is to be torn out of life and have to make the best of the sidelines. Watch it for the joy of seeing a well-crafted film. Watch it with a few tears and a vast amount of respect.