Ivan Radford | On 24, Feb 2024

Director: Davis Guggenheim
Cast: Michael J Fox
Certificate: 15

“Sounds boring.” That’s how Michael J Fox the story of his life – or, specifically, the version of that story in which Parkinson’s disease crushes him and defines what his life is. Fox, ever the charismatic star of Back to the Future, tells us the real version of his life story in this wonderful documentary, and it’s a story that’s lively, funny, heartfelt and, we join him in realising, only just beginning.

Fox shot to stardom in the US as a kid, thanks to his scene-stealing role in TV sitcom Family Ties. A bundle of barely containable energy, with whip-smart coming timing to boot, he’s a laugh-out-loud screen presence with charisma to spare. He rockets about sets with a kinetic force that, unsurprisingly, runs through his whole life: he’s always on the move.

That becomes painfully evident when he’s filming both Back to the Future (parachuted in late to reshoot scenes done with original star Eric Stoltz) and Family Ties simultaneously – one in the day, one at night. Later, when he’s married to fellow actor Tracy Pollan, he still can’t stop jetting around the place for work, and openly laments that he left her – and her career – to become contained by the role of mother.

That self-deprecating candour is at the heart of the film and its subject, as we go on to hear about his attempts to hide away from his diagnosis of Parkinson’s disease by taking pills and burying himself in work. With typical frankness, he even recalls how he thought he was getting better as actor by being less animated but actually he was just getting “sicker”.

It’s perhaps no surprise, then, that it was Pollan’s blunt assessment of him as an “asshole” that won his heart. What emerges through this 90-minute portrait of celebrity, resilience and determination to raise awareness of Parkinson’s (and the need to fund research) is also a beautiful love story of support, grace and a shared honesty and humour.

Director Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, He Named Me Malala) taps into that wit, working with editor Michael Harte (Beckham, Three Identical Strangers) to illustrate every thought, feeling and situation with a seemingly endless compilation of clips from Fox’s own movies. The result is a surprising, fast-paced pop culture mixtape that helps tell Fox’s story in his own words, amusingly taken out of context.

Fox says early on that, when younger, he “lacked the faith to be still”. There’s a wry irony to how he juxtaposes that with Parkinson’s, which means his body is always moving, and yet he provides us with an uplifting, inspiring example of how to be still and present in one’s life. Ever the comedian, he’s delightful, optimistic company. falling down after saying hi to someone in the street, he immediately quips: “You knocked me off my feet.” This film will do the same to you.

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