SOME KIND OF MIRACLE
US, 1980, 96 minutes, Colour.
David Dukes, Andrea Marcovicci, Nancy Marchand, Art Hindle, Stephen Elliot.
Directed by Jerrold Freedman.
Some Kind of Miracle is a pleasing, if sentiment-filled, telemovie about illness and recovery. David Dukes and Andrea Marcovicci do very well in the central role of a couple facing up to the man's injury, his long treatment, the hopes for recovery. Audiences can identify easily with the sentiment and the hope. Pleasing entertainment with social background.
1. The emotional response to the characters and their plight? An entertaining film? For home audiences?
2. The telemovie and its being geared to home audiences, the type of impact? The gearing of emotion and suspense for how viewing? The role of the social telemovie in highlighting ordinary living, difficulties, social needs and remedies?
3. How authentic the film: Californian backgrounds, San Francisco, the sea, homes, hospital, rehabilitation centres? The presentation of the times, the patients? The couple as authors of this story - a true story?
4. The importance of the structure for audience involvement: the accident, the merriories of the past, the plight, suffering, hope? Audience involvement both emotionally, with understanding, with hope?
5. The build-up to the accident - the lyrical sequences, the suddenness of the accident? Time factor, urgency, attempts to help, the medical consequences. the emotional consequences? The draining effect on Maggie? Desperation for Joe? Hope and progress? The focus of the title?
6. The film's sketching of ice and Maggie - as characters.. their backgrounds, families, work, life together, prospects of marriage? Strengths and weaknesses and their being tested through the accident? Qualities of love and devotion?
7. The accident and the ability to cope, anxiety? The consequences in the hospital - the detailed sequences in the hospital? The long time in hospital? Maggie and her work, travelling, her visits, being tired? Joe and his tension? The marriage and its prospects?
8. The various members of the family and their attitudes, behaviour, pressures, critique, support?
9. Dr. Spencer and his skill, quality of help, at the various stages of recovery, therapy, his contribution to hopes? His advice and consolation?
10. The range of supporting characters to make the film plausible - the shop, the hospital, family?
11. How satisfying an emotional experience, sharing the plight of the central characters, the overall effect of watching this kind of film - as a telemovie?
