The Superman who fell to Earth remained a hero

This moving documentary dives into Christopher Reeve’s legacy as the caped crusader and survivor of a devastating accident that crippled his body – but not his spirit.

Stephen Romei

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story tells the story of the meteoric rise and fall of the actor, seen here in the 1978 film.

3 min read

9:09AMOctober 10, 2024.

Updated 11:46AMOctober 10, 2024

The documentary Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story opens with clips from the Superman movies that saw an off-off Broadway nobody become a Hollywood star overnight. Bullets bounce off the man of steel. He walks through fire. He leaps tall buildings, rescues Lois Lane and so on.

Then, as he says, “in an instant everything changed”. Christopher Reeve, who took up horse riding after learning to ride for the 1985 television film, Anna Karenina, fell from his mount at an equestrian event and broke his neck. It was 1995 and he was 42.

Christopher Reeve was off-off Broadway nobody who become a Hollywood star overnight.

We know this part of the Christopher Reeve story. He was paralysed from the shoulders down, needed a ventilator to breathe and 24-hour nursing care. He was fortunate, in the narrow financial sense, as he had the money to afford this. This documentary tells two other stories. First, how Reeve and his family coped with life after the accident. Second, it offers a tantalising glimpse into the crazy business of making movies.

Let’s start with the latter as it’s one of the most fascinating aspects of this film, which is directed by Ian Bonhote and Peter Ettedgui and written by the directors and Otto Burnham.

Reeve’s actor friends are interviewed, as are directors and producers he worked with. This is part new, part archival, such as the contribution of his best friend, Robin Williams, who committed suicide in 2014, a decade after Reeve died.

Reeve, left, wife Dana, right, and Robin Williams pose at the Governor's Ball after Oscars in 1996. Picture: AFP

Glenn Close talks about the Reeve-Williams friendship. Her thoughts on this are revelatory. Susan Sarandon talks about the friend she loved. Jeff Daniel is in droll comic mode when he remembers he, Reeve and William Hurt doing an off-off Broadway play in 1977 when the Superman casting call came in. “Bill” warned him not to take the role. He was a serious actor, not a comic book hero. Reeve ignored him.

This goes to another area of interest. It’s hard to believe today, with the Marvel and DC universes big at the box office, but in 1978 no-one, including the studio, thought a movie based on a comic book would work.

Reeve’s intellectual father, Franklin, who was a tough taskmaster, was briefly pleased when his son landed the role, until he learned the production wasn’t an adaptation of George Bernard Shaw’s 1903 play Man and Superman, but about a costumed superhero from the planet Krypton.

Interviews with Reeve are included. Asked whether he liked working with Marlon Brando on the first of the four Superman films he made between 1978 and 1987, his response is a sadly familiar no. “He took the two million and ran.”

A producer talks about the actors and entertainers who wanted to don the red cape. Neil Diamond was a surprising wannabe. Arnold Schwarzenegger less so, except for the fact, according to the producer, that he couldn’t act.

The story of Reeve’s post-accident life is sad and uplifting at the same time. Gae Exton, with whom he had two children, is interviewed. Dana Morosini, with whom he had one child, appears in archival interviews. Her own health story only heightens the tragedy.

Reeve with Susan Sarandon at the Oscars in 1996.

All three children, now adults and running the spinal injury foundation established by Reeve and Morosini, talk about their father, often with tears in their eyes.

The comments by Reeve himself are taken from archival interviews and the audiobook of his 1999 autobiography, Still Me. Home video footage is included.

The work of the Christoper and Dana Reeve Foundation is where Superman’s personal catastrophe has helped ordinary Americans with spinal cord injuries who are not rich or famous. This, along with the Superman movies (and I’m going to add his performance in the 1993 film The Remains of the Day), is Christopher Reeve’s lasting legacy.

The directors have deftly pulled together the strands of Reeve’s personal and professional life to tell a story that reminds us no man is superman. Some of what we see is available online, such as Reeve’s speech at the 1996 Oscars, which had everybody crying, but seeing it in the broader context is quite moving, 20 years after his death.