{"id":621205,"date":"2026-09-11T08:06:09","date_gmt":"2026-09-11T08:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621205\/"},"modified":"2026-09-11T08:06:09","modified_gmt":"2026-09-11T08:06:09","slug":"being-heumann-review-ruth-madeley-in-sian-heders-moving-bio-drama","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/621205\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Being Heumann’ Review: Ruth Madeley in Si\u00e2n Heder’s Moving Bio-Drama"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tIn the first and best of many late \u201870s needle drops that punctuate\u00a0Being Heumann<\/a>, the punchy guitar groove of Iggy Pop\u2019s \u201cThe Passenger\u201d starts out over a close-up of wheels turning on pavement before the camera pulls back to take in disability rights activist Judy Heumann, maneuvering her wheelchair around crowded city streets and refusing to be intimidated even when a bus driver is bearing down on her with his hand clamped on the vehicle\u2019s horn.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tAs played here with an iron will and a take-charge attitude by British actress Ruth Madeley<\/a>, Judy is a tenacious figure with uncommon gumption. But all the pluck and determination etched across her face don\u2019t obscure the point of the opening sequence \u2014 to encapsulate the enormous challenges faced by people with disabilities in places with inadequate concern for accessibility.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tBeing Heumann\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\tThe Bottom Line<\/p>\n

\tEarnest but effective.<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tVenue: Toronto International Film Festival (Gala Presentations \u2014 Opening Night)
Release date: Friday, Nov. 6 (streaming Nov. 13)
Cast: Ruth Madeley, Mark Ruffalo, Dylan O\u2019Brien, Madeline Delp, Roberta Colindrez, Jon Beavers, Antwan Tolliver, Ray Fisher, Andrew Pilkington, Michael Patrick Thornton, Russell Harvard, Daniel Durant
Director:\u00a0Si\u00e2n Heder
Screenwriters:\u00a0Si\u00e2n Heder, Rebekah Taussig
\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2 hours 7 minutes\n\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\tThe first feature from director\u00a0Si\u00e2n Heder<\/a> since her coming-of-age drama\u00a0CODA<\/a>\u00a0went all the way from Sundance to a best picture win at the 2022 Oscars,\u00a0Being Heumann\u00a0follows a similar inspirational playbook, albeit lifted from a chapter in the American civil rights annals rather than drawing on real-life experiences to craft a fictional narrative. As with\u00a0CODA, in which Heder cast deaf actors as deaf characters, the new film\u2019s winning hand is the use of actors with disabilities to play the ragtag coalition led by Heumann in 1977 in what became the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history.<\/p>\n

\n\tPreviously covered in the Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary\u00a0Crip Camp<\/a>, the 504 sit-in took its name from that section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities. Given that four years had passed since the signing of the bill but zero government action had been taken to put it into practice, Heumann spontaneously led a large group of fellow protesters when she stormed the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The sit-in lasted an unprecedented 28 days.<\/p>\n

\n\tPeople who have seen\u00a0Crip Camp\u00a0might not gain a ton of new insights here, but Heder and co-writer Rebekah Taussig deserve credit for telling the story in an easily digestible, emotionally effective way that stands to reach a wider audience when it debuts Nov. 13 on Apple TV<\/a>, after opening a week earlier in theaters.<\/p>\n

\n\tEven if it sometimes has the feel of an old-school issues-driven TV movie,\u00a0Being Heumann\u00a0asks and answers questions that remain amply relevant today, about whether protests and collective action still matter. Where it will be most illuminating is in opening the public\u2019s eyes to the basic human rights systematically denied people with disabilities before legal protections were put in place. The Trump administration\u2019s efforts to weaken those protections adds timeliness to Heder\u2019s film.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe depiction of courage, commitment and cooperation is stirring stuff, with people from across the disability spectrum \u2014 blind and deaf Americans as well as wheelchair users \u2014 overcoming heated in-fighting and political bullying tactics, banding together to galvanize change that would benefit millions.<\/p>\n

\n\tSome of the most moving sections are the testimonies of the activists when they finally get face time with government reps, detailing the years in which they were denied schooling and declined jobs for which they were eminently qualified. Perhaps the saddest note is the mention of countless people with no access to assistance, ensuring their invisibility by keeping them confined to their homes.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe chief antagonist standing in the way of long-delayed regulations is HEW Secretary Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo, doing a somewhat buffoonish impersonation), who argued that the $2.4 billion in taxpayer dollars it would take to implement the regulations required a more extensive review. On the supportive side is Democratic Congressman George Miller (Rob Delaney) and local TV news reporter Evan White (Dylan O\u2019Brien), whose coverage gets picked up by national news networks, much of it filmed while he is embedded with activists in the occupied San Francisco building. Both Delaney and O\u2019Brien sport fabulous \u201870s staches the size of caterpillars.<\/p>\n

\n\tHeder and Taussig are careful not to make Miller and White \u2014 and ultimately Califano when he caves in to pressure and signs \u2014 into ableist saviors. The backbone of the film is very clearly the coalition led by Heumann, who frequently rubs fellow activists the wrong way \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m not an asshole. I\u2019m just from Brooklyn,\u201d she protests at one point \u2014 but is fully acknowledged as the driving force they need.<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the key people involved in the occupation is Kitty Cone (Madeline Delp), whose insistence on civility prompts Judy to call her a Pollyanna; their friendship evolves in fits and starts with a lovely payoff in the closing scenes.<\/p>\n

\n\tAntwan Tolliver has strong moments as Brad Lomax, a member of the Black Panthers with multiple sclerosis, who calls in reinforcements from the party to deliver food in a memorable scene. And Andrew Pilkington injects welcome humor into his portrayal of Hale Zukas, a pioneer in the Berkeley movement for independent living, who communicates with a pointer antenna attached to his head and an alphabet board \u2014 these were the days before smart tablets. \u201cDisability is not a tragedy,\u201d Hale writes, putting a key theme into words. \u201cIt\u2019s a tremendous hassle.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAmong the allies, handsome military vet Jim Pechin (Jon Beavers) and out-and-proud lesbian Joni Breves (Roberta Colindrez) make warm impressions, both of them attracted to Judy\u2019s \u201cradical crip\u201d energy. It\u2019s a little obvious, but lobbing in the raucous Ramones classic \u201cJudy Is a Punk\u201d gives an extra kick to a breakthrough moment, and the wonderful Madeley earns it.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dramatic momentum flags a little as the sit-in goes from days to weeks and the film nudges past the two-hour mark. But the characters\u00a0and\u00a0the disabled actors playing them are so engaging in their unbroken perseverance and their levity even in the face of harsh setbacks \u2014 a late-night raid by cops is especially hair-raising \u2014 that it\u2019s impossible not to keep rooting for them. Their irrepressible joy is a tonic, and every sit-in should have a \u201csex tent\u201d made of protest banners and American flags.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the first and best of many late \u201870s needle drops that punctuate\u00a0Being Heumann, the punchy guitar groove…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":621206,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[3288,263779,93,61,60,270,263780,216651,1745,233943,237826,1998,276],"class_list":["post-621205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-apple-tv","tag-being-heumann","tag-entertainment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-movies","tag-ruth-madeley","tag-siu00e2n-heder","tag-tiff","tag-tiff-2026","tag-toronto-2026","tag-toronto-film-festival","tag-toronto-international-film-festival"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621205","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=621205"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/621205\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/621206"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=621205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=621205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=621205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}