Watched: 05/08/2025
Format: Tubi
Viewing: First
Director: Christopher Reeve
I'm gonna be straight up with y'all. I am so grateful for a good movie at this moment in ChabertQuest 2025. Several of the past few have been making this journey less than ideal.
The Brooke Ellison Story (2004) is a movie I was aware of in 2004 when it came out, but completely missed as an A&E TV movie that came out during a time when I was working insane hours. As one can guess it entered my awareness because it was directed by Christopher Reeve, who passed just two weeks before the film aired.
And, of course, once I knew about the real Brooke Ellison the film was based on, when she'd pop up in in the news every once in a while, I was reminded I'd heard of her because of the film. But because it was a TV movie, once it was gone, it was kind of gone, so I didn't know much about it.
I didn't know, for example, that it stars Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio and John Slattery as Brooke's parents. But, holy smokes, is this one of those places where a movie found the right director and cast. What could have been a saccharine movie about a family with pluck overcoming adversity manages to work because it's not about a can-do spirit and a song in your heart winning the day. It's about the million steps you have to overcome, from regulations that make no sense, to insurance shenanigans to those who think they know best - at least at the outset.