Waterdance

Eric Stoltz, Wesley Snipes and William Forsythe play three very different men brought together into a hospital ward after each of them has received a paralyzing injury. This is a great film based on the true life experiences of writer/co-director Neil Jiminez. This isn't your typical, sappy, uplifting film about men overcoming personal tragedy. The characters here aren't idealized. They aren't saints. They are alternately angry, confused, prejudiced, self-pitying or funny: in other words, real human beings. This is perhaps the best film ever about men in wheelchairs, but don't let that image scare you. This film is both funny and poignant. Don't miss it.

I loved working on this film with Neal and Michael. It was gold in my hands, and I knew it. Cut on film, the script and performances were superb, and I am so glad to see your reviewer gave Mr. Forsythe his due, as I absolutely loved him in this film. The first day of dailies he came up to me, leaned into me very closely and said "Choices, Jeff, choices", and then walked away. His choices were wonderful, and he won best actor at the Houston Film Festival, and the film took the Audience Award and the Screenwriting Award at the Sundance Film Festival in 1992. Neal was wonderful to work with, and is still a close friend, and that cannot be said of too many in this fickle town. He wrote a great script, and he and Mike got the performances of a lifetime out of everyone. Eric, Helen Hunt, one of Wesley Snipe's best to this day, and it was wonderful to be a part of the experience that was Neal's life. It was also interesting that Gale Anne Hurd, of action movie fame (Terminator, etc.), chose to produce it and get the film made. When it won at Sundance she threw her arms around me and said "We did it!" Neal, of course, was the man who did it, but it was great to be along on that ride. Jeff Freeman

Author Joel Garcia (Eric Stoltz) is paralyzed after a hiking accident. Anna (Helen Hunt) struggles to choose between her husband and her affair with Joel. Les and Rosa (Elizabeth Peña) are his physical therapists. Other patients include brash womanizer Raymond Hill (Wesley Snipes) trying to reconnect with his family, Victor (Tony Genaro) with a large Latino family, and racist biker Bloss (William Forsythe) looking to sue with his mother (Grace Zabriskie)'s help. Each has trouble dealing with their lives.

Stoltz is restricted physically but performs masterfully. Raymond and Bloss are pretty broad characters. They needed to be toned down slightly. There are some compelling elements. I like Stoltz's take but not everything else is working. The motel room scene is devastating but Helen Hunt probably needs more screen time to show her life with her husband. The material has some greatness but I don't think it's all there.

This film never received the attention it deserved, although this is one of the finest pieces of ensemble acting, and one of the most realistic stories I have seen on screen. Clearly filmed on a small budget in a real V.A. Hospital, the center of the story is Joel, very well-played by Eric Stoltz. Joel has been paralyzed in a motorcycle accident, and comes to the hospital to a ward with other men who have spinal injuries. Joel is in love with Anna, his married lover, played by Helen Hunt, who shows early signs of her later Academy-Award winning work.

Although the Joel-Anna relationship is the basic focus, there are many other well-developed characters in the ward. Wesley Snipes does a tremendous job as the angry Raymond. Even more impressive is William Forsythe as the bitter and racist Bloss. I think Forsythe's two best scenes are when he becomes frustrated and angry at the square dancers, and, later, when he feels empathy for a young Korean man who has been shot in a liquor store hold up. My favorite scene with Snipes is the in the roundtable discussion of post-injury sexual options.

The chemistry between Stoltz and Hunt is very strong, and they have two very intimate, but not gratuitous, sex scenes. The orgasm in the ward is both sexy and amusing. There is also another memorable scene where Joel and Bloss and the Korean boy take the specially-equipped van to the strip bar. It's truly a comedy of errors as they make their feeble attempts to get the van going to see the "naked ladies."

The story is made even more poignant by the fact that the director, Neal Jimenez, is paralyzed in real life. This is basically his story. This film is real, not glossy or flashy. To have the amount of talent in a film of such a small budget is amazing. I recommend this film to everyone I see, because it is one of those films that even improves on a second look. It's a shame that such a great piece of work gets overlooked, but through video, perhaps it can get the attention it so richly deserves.

_Waterdance_ explores a wide variety of aspects of the life of the spinally injured artfully. From the petty torments of faulty fluorescent lights flashing overhead to sexuality, masculinity and depression, the experience of disability is laid open.

The diversity of the central characters themselves underscores the complexity of the material examined - Joel, the writer, Raymond, the black man with a murky past, and Bloss, the racist biker. At first, these men are united by nothing other than the nature of their injuries, but retain their competitive spirit. Over time, shared experience, both good and bad, brings them together as friends to support one another.

Most obvious of the transformations is that experienced by Joel, who initially distances himself from his fellow patients with sunglasses, headphones and curtains. As he comes to accept the changes that disablement has made to his life, Joel discards these props and begins to involve himself in the struggles of the men with whom he shares the ward.

The dance referred to in the title is a reference to this daily struggle to keep one's head above water; to give up the dance is to reject life. _Waterdance_ is a moving and powerful film on many levels, and I do not hesitate to recommend it.