RORY O' SHEA WAS HERE

RATING:

Starring: James McAvoy, Steven Robertson, Romola Garai, Gerard McSorley, Tom Hickey, Brenda Fricker. Written by Jeffrey Caine. Directed by Damien O'Donnell

Rated R for language

Let’s be honest. Rory O’Shea Was Here looks like the kind of movie that you’re going to hate. It’s about two guys in wheelchairs, friendship, empowerment, liberation, and love. The cynics out there—and I’m first in line—will be afraid of gagging on the sappy goo.

And yeah, at times, and especially toward the end, the warm-fuzziness of Rory can be a bit much. For the most part, though, director Damien O’Donnell tightropes the line between good drama and sentimentality, resisting the urge to elicit cheap tears.

So where was Rory O’Shea, exactly? As the film opens, Rory, played with caustic defiance by James McAvoy, is a newly-admitted resident to a home for people with disabilities, or, as the sign on the building says, “A Special Home for Special People.” Rory struggles with a condition called Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which paralyzes his entire body except for his neck, head, and two fingers. What Rory lacks in physical mobility, though, he makes up for in brash language and scornful humor. He plays practical jokes on the other patients (such as spraying them with paint through a straw), cranks up his music late at night, and treats the nurses with disdain.

Rory targets most of his abuse at another patient, Michael (Steven Robertson), who happens to be his perfect foil. Michael is also confined to a wheelchair, but, unlike Rory, he has partial use of his upper body. And whereas Rory is a loud smartass, Michael’s cerebral palsy curses him with a speech impediment, forcing him to communicate by spelling out words on an alphabet.

For most of Michael’s twenty or so years, no one has ever been able to hear him talk. No one relates to him. No one, that is, except Rory, who has a surprising ability to understand Michael’s voice. The two form the proverbial “unlikely friendship,”—(which always seem so likely in the movies)—and Rory helps Michael break out of his shell. After a few days they’re inseparable, and Michael even adopts Rory’s spiked hairdo.

Not content to waste away in this institution, which he likens to a prison, Rory schemes an illicit night on the town. When they’re supposed to be collecting donations in yellow buckets, they wheel away, head to a bar, and use the donations for beer money. It’s a great scene. We’re given permission to laugh a little, as there’s something undeniably comic about two disabled people using their collection-funds to pick up chicks, and we also feel their discomfort at trying to act “normal” in a bar. When they approach two cute girls at booth, “Swingers” style, the flicker of annoyance on the girls’ faces is enough to win our sympathy for both Michael and Rory, cutting through our jaded defenses.

Rory’s great dream is to leave the institution and live on his own, and he’s applied for what the hospital calls “independent living” several times. Each time, though, he’s rejected, as the board deems him irresponsible. But with some assistance from a clever Michael, the two eventually move out on their own, and they have to adjust to living with each other and living without their accustomed support system.

These attempts at independence are both awkward and heart wrenching. In one painful scene, Michael, for the first time, tries to brush his teeth. He can’t do it. His shaking hand squirts some toothpaste on the toothbrush, but then, after a brief spasm, his arm drops the toothbrush on the floor. But he can’t pick up the toothbrush since he’s in the wheelchair. After someone picks up the toothbrush for him he tries again, then drops it again.

But just when these scenes threaten to melt into sappy goo, Rory will do something ridiculous that allows us to exhale, such as challenge a group of scooter-children to a race. Rory in the wheelchair, the kids on scooters—trash talk for everyone. McAvoy infuses Rory with just enough angry bluster, just the right amount of chip-on-the-shoulder defiance, to counterbalance the emotional

In order to make their new place livable, Rory and Michael need a personal assistant, who they find in the form of the lovely Siobhan (Romola Garai). She’s one of the girls that they hit on during their illegal night out, and Michael falls in love at first glance. His infatuation is more painful than the toothbrush scene, as it’s obvious to everyone, especially a concerned Rory, that his love will not be reciprocated.

Not everything clicks. Two errant subplots, one about Rory’s father and one about Michael’s, serve to bog down the story. And, in the end, the goo-factor does get a bit thick. One man’s tragedy is another man’s soap opera. But even with these blemishes, “Rory” is a well-made drama. The acting by McAvoy and Robertson is top-notch, and has caused many viewers to wonder if they really are disabled (neither one is).

Most important, the film is not about disabilities. Not really. That’s just backdrop. The real story is friendship, a desire to belong, and the sting of rejection—themes that apply to us all.

Agree? Disagree? E-mail me at jeff@latinoreview.com