This sensitive but flawed documentary retells the inspirational story of Michael J Fox, the babyfaced Hollywood star of 80s hits including Back to the Future and TV’s Family Ties, who stunned the showbusiness world in 1998 by announcing his Parkinson’s diagnosis. It was a condition he had kept secret for seven years, having controlled it with medication and cleverly masked it on screen with his hyperactive high-energy tics, tricks and mannerisms, until the condition had deteriorated too far.
The film takes us through some of his moments from the TV comedy Spin City – his final TV gig prior to going public with the diagnosis – and, heartwrenchingly, you can see how the symptoms were beginning to show. It’s an arresting watch, although in addition to dramatic reconstructions of his childhood, film-maker Davis Guggenheim has a cutesy-ironic habit of using clips from Fox’s movies themselves to dramatise key moments in Fox’s life: an unnecessary, distracting and slightly naive approach, eliding the public and private personae.
