In “Gigi & Nate,” a film directed by BAFTA Award-winning Irishman Nick Hamm of the far superior 2016 drama “The Journey,” London-born Charlie Rowe (“Rocketman”) plays Nate Gibson of Nashville, Tennessee, a young man left quadriplegic by a life-threatening bacterial infection. After attempting suicide, Nate gets a service animal, a once abused capuchin monkey named Gigi (Allie), and his mood improves dramatically. But an unpleasant encounter with an animal rights activist “Karen” named Chloe Gaines (Welker White in a thankless role) endangers Nate and Gigi’s future together. Will Gaines be able to have capuchins declared illegal as service animals in Tennessee?
One of the more interesting things about “Gigi & Nate,” which is reportedly based on a true story, is how the film fails to acknowledge some obvious things and chooses to focus on others. Nate’s predicament is indeed dire, especially for a young man facing life as someone unable to help himself. But he has a close family to support him. His mother Claire (Academy Award-winner Marcia Gay Harden), who always seems to have come from the hairdresser, is his strongest ally. But Nate also has his “day-drinking,” 80-year-old granny Mama Blanche (Diane Ladd), his sisters Annabelle (Hannah Riley) and the older Katy (Aussie Josephine Langford). Nate also has a caring personal aide named Nogo (Sasha Compere). Nate’s father Dan (Jim Belushi) has some sort of a high-powered career. We don’t know much about it, but it appears to keep the family in very comfortable style.
When Claire realizes the seriousness of her son’s condition, she orders a helicopter to transport him like it is second nature to her. The Gibsons live in a plantation-style Nashville McMansion of dubious taste. Nate has his own private home in the back, a glass-walled modern facility and sanctuary, complete with a mechanized sling chair Nogo uses to wash him and ferry him about on a motorized rail. The family had to sell the summer home in North Carolina to build it. Boo hoo.
