NR | Rottentomatoes.com Rating:N/A | 2009 |
(Thematic elements; Brief, mild language) | Picky Flicks Quote: "A moving tribute to a real role model." -Kam Williams, Sly Fox | RUNTIME: 86 min. |
Visit:www.screenit.com for complete details | Movie Mood:  Impressed |
Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story is a made-for-TV movie that manages to avoid many of the pitfalls that make most TV-geared fare scream, “Hey! I was never intended to be a real movie.” Granted, it’s a bit episodic in nature and never fully fleshes out the key moments that helped to shape Ben Carson into the extraordinary individual he is today. Still, Gifted Hands manages to be engaging, likable, informative, and even genuinely moving at various points, with a fantastic, understated turn from Cuba Gooding Jr. as our titular protagonist.
Bennie, as Ben’s hardworking mother calls him, was born dumb and without an imagination. Or so he thinks. But both of these assertions only make Sonya Carson all the more determined that her two sons will not end up like she did, scraping for every penny at dead-end cleaning and babysitting jobs. It’s the 1950s, and Sonya can’t even read, a fact which she disguises by insisting to her boys that she needs new reading glasses and that they must therefore “sound the words out” aloud to her as they read to her from their schoolbooks.
Ben isn’t much interested in learning, but he loves his mother, and as she begins to push, pull, and coax him to improve himself—her mantra: you can do anything that anyone else can do, only you can do it better—he slowly discovers that his brain is indeed capable of both intelligent and creative thought. It’s a discovery—the miracle of the human brain—that completely changes his life and shapes the course of his future.
You see, Ben Carson isn’t just not dumb. He’s actually quite smart. So smart, in fact, that he becomes the director of Johns Hopkins’ Pediatric Neurosurgery at the tender age of 33. So smart that he successfully performs a complex surgery that has never been achieved before without casualties. I’m sure that anyone who met Ben Carson after his transformation from poor, underprivileged black kid growing up in Detroit into world-renowned neurosurgeon would never pause to consider the fact that he had ever been anything other then brilliant and gifted.
Neither might we, except for the backdrop of information that Gifted Hands provides us. Sonya Carson grew up in foster care and married at thirteen in order to escape the system. After years of apparent wedded bliss, she discovers that her husband belongs not only to her but to his other wife and children as well and that he is dealing drugs. Determined to shield her boys from his destructive influences, Sonya moves her small family from Boston to Detroit and proceeds to work her knuckles to the bone for every dollar she can get.
It would come as no surprise then that if Ben had abandonment issues and behavioral difficulties. Surprisingly, though, he's a sweet-natured child, as reluctant as the next 8-year-old to learn his timetables instead of watching his favorite TV show, but still eager to please. Which is why a brief foray into Ben’s apparently violent teen years is a bit of a head-scratcher. We’re meant to understand that Ben struggled with a temper that he could barely control, but the contrast between the affable Ben to the teen who almost attacks his mother with a hammer and stabs a classmate only to have the knife blade providentially snap in two upon impact instead of piercing the boy’s stomach is so jarring as to be almost unbelievable. Still, even if somewhat clumsily handled, the incident has to be shown since it smashes through Ben's anger and scares him into seeing the error of his ways. It is also what prompts a conversion or rebirth experience (he was raised in church under his devout mother) during which he begs God to take away his rage.
Gifted Hands does an above-average job of portraying Ben’s reliance on his Christian faith without adopting a preachy or overbearing tone. But we never quite grasp from “movie Ben” just how much his Christianity informed almost all of “real-life Ben’s” actions, a fact which is well-documented in both the memoirs upon which this movie is based and in any articles about Ben Carson’s personal life as well.
Gifted Hands frames its narrative with the revolutionary surgery that I mentioned above, beginning in 1987 when Ben is first approached to consider attempting the separation of conjoined twins who were joined at the head. The surgery, though tried before, has always resulted in at least one of the subjects’ deaths. It then flashes back to let us know who and what Ben was before he achieved the status of internationally sought-after neurosurgeon, progressing through the years until we again arrive at the moment when Ben must decide if and how he will succeed where so many others have failed.
This framing device helps us to fully appreciate the incredible journey that Ben had to undertake to arrive at such a momentous crossroads. And it keeps us legitimately interested in the outcome of the surgery, which, I will freely admit, sounds impossible.
Gifted Hands is drama, pure and simple. But it's drama done quite well, undergirded by a naturally compelling underdog story and some stellar supporting and, in Gooding Jr's case, star turns. It's the kind of movie that makes you wonder just what you might be able to achieve with a little brains, some motivation, and a whole lot of prayer.
Until next Wednesday, stay picky! Your mind will thank you later.
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