To bend a famous paradoxical question, can an immovable object also be an unstoppable force? Why, yes, especially if we’re talking about disability advocate Judy Heumann, one of the most consequential figures in civil rights history. In 1977, the wheelchair-using New York teacher spearheaded the longest sit-in protest of a federal building in American history, sparking enforcement of the country’s first anti-discrimination legislation for people with disabilities (Section 504 of the 1972 Rehabilitation Act).
If, like many, you came away from 2020’s archive-rich documentary “Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution” wondering when we’d get a Judy Heumann movie centered on the beaming force of her sharp-edged personality, Oscar-winning filmmaker Siân Heder has now answered that call with her “CODA” follow-up, “Being Heumann,” built around that momentous sit-in. It’s a well-intentioned, heart-in-the-right-place movie — but is that what this ornery tale of angry activists upending a social order designed to keep them hidden ultimately deserves? It’s hard to square the inspiring reality of a ragtag gang tossing out the playbook that life handed them with the cut-and-dried filmmaking choices “Being Heumann” ultimately deploys to try to stir us.
Casting isn’t one of its problems. Heder’s dedication to experiential authenticity in her actors matters, and it shows. From the moment she’s stopping a Mack truck in Manhattan traffic in the opening scene, Ruth Madeley gives great middle-finger energy and wry humor as Heumann, although there’s not enough of the latter in Heder and co-screenwriter Rebekah Taussig’s often straightforward depiction of her leadership skills.
Still, a disruptive vigor carries us through the early moments when Heumann, having packed a toothbrush, convinces her lively citizen posse of disabled and every-kind-of-body activists — Kitty Cone (Madeline Delp), Dennis Billups (a charming Charlie Rush-Reese), Hale Zukas (Andrew Pilkington), Brad Lomax (Antwan Tolliver) and countless others — to swarm San Francisco’s federal building and occupy it. Their goal: a long-delayed Section 504 signature from Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo) in Washington, D.C. The protesters also win over an initially unnerved local news reporter (Dylan O’Brien), who embeds with them as a communications ally.
Once the reality of the occupation settles in, “Being Heumann” begins settling for digestible nuggets of feel-good community (sex, dope, humor, righteousness) at the expense of something more immersive about the hard road of protest, especially when health is a factor. Heder also struggles to convey the complicated dynamics of multi-character expression in tight quarters, which breeds a sameness of style and some sitcom-ish touches. Though the period is dutifully realized, we’re left without an artful dramatization of why everything changed because of these particular people in this specific scenario.
That push and pull between highlight storytelling and narrative complexity is also noticeable in Ruffalo’s turn, which is entertaining enough but too often feels like an unsubtle mouthpiece for inaction instead of a portrayal of what a do-gooder stuck in human bureaucracy looks like. Even a sequence of testimonials during a makeshift mid-protest hearing, though well-written and well-acted, feels rushed for impact rather than finessed. Dialogue that constantly reminds us of the stakes at hand isn’t a substitute for making us feel them.
“Being Heumann” is never dull, because this incident and its impact were never dull, nor was the principled, unwavering Heumann herself. Pity would lose any battle with her forthrightness. But even this all-timer of a central character is undermined by basic storytelling and the schematic rudiments of uplift. The drive to sweep us up into the beat-by-beat inevitability of history is understandable, but it prevents a more intimate savoring of the person who powered it all.
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