‘Being Heumann’ Review: Ruth Madeley in Siân Heder’s Moving Bio-Drama

In the first and best of many late ‘70s needle drops that punctuate Being Heumann, the punchy guitar groove of Iggy Pop’s “The Passenger” starts out over a close-up of wheels turning on pavement before the camera pulls back to take in disability rights activist Judy Heumann, maneuvering her wheelchair around crowded city streets and refusing to be intimidated even when a bus driver is bearing down on her with his hand clamped on the vehicle’s horn. 

As played here with an iron will and a take-charge attitude by British actress Ruth Madeley, Judy is a tenacious figure with uncommon gumption. But all the pluck and determination etched across her face don’t obscure the point of the opening sequence — to encapsulate the enormous challenges faced by people with disabilities in places with inadequate concern for accessibility.

The first feature from director Siân Heder since her coming-of-age drama CODA went all the way from Sundance to a best picture win at the 2022 Oscars, Being Heumann follows a similar inspirational playbook, albeit lifted from a chapter in the American civil rights annals rather than drawing on real-life experiences to craft a fictional narrative. As with CODA, in which Heder cast deaf actors as deaf characters, the new film’s winning hand is the use of actors with disabilities to play the ragtag coalition led by Heumann in 1977 in what became the longest occupation of a federal building in U.S. history.

Previously covered in the Oscar-nominated 2020 documentary Crip Camp, the 504 sit-in took its name from that section of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, the first U.S. federal civil rights protection for people with disabilities. Given that four years had passed since the signing of the bill but zero government action had been taken to put it into practice, Heumann spontaneously led a large group of fellow protesters when she stormed the San Francisco office of the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The sit-in lasted an unprecedented 28 days.

People who have seen Crip Camp might not gain a ton of new insights here, but Heder and co-writer Rebekah Taussig deserve credit for telling the story in an easily digestible, emotionally effective way that stands to reach a wider audience when it debuts Nov. 13 on Apple TV, after opening a week earlier in theaters.

Even if it sometimes has the feel of an old-school issues-driven TV movie, Being Heumann asks and answers questions that remain amply relevant today, about whether protests and collective action still matter. Where it will be most illuminating is in opening the public’s eyes to the basic human rights systematically denied people with disabilities before legal protections were put in place. The Trump administration’s efforts to weaken those protections adds timeliness to Heder’s film.

The depiction of courage, commitment and cooperation is stirring stuff, with people from across the disability spectrum — blind and deaf Americans as well as wheelchair users — overcoming heated in-fighting and political bullying tactics, banding together to galvanize change that would benefit millions.

Some of the most moving sections are the testimonies of the activists when they finally get face time with government reps, detailing the years in which they were denied schooling and declined jobs for which they were eminently qualified. Perhaps the saddest note is the mention of countless people with no access to assistance, ensuring their invisibility by keeping them confined to their homes.

The chief antagonist standing in the way of long-delayed regulations is HEW Secretary Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo, doing a somewhat buffoonish impersonation), who argued that the $2.4 billion in taxpayer dollars it would take to implement the regulations required a more extensive review. On the supportive side is Democratic Congressman George Miller (Rob Delaney) and local TV news reporter Evan White (Dylan O’Brien), whose coverage gets picked up by national news networks, much of it filmed while he is embedded with activists in the occupied San Francisco building. Both Delaney and O’Brien sport fabulous ‘70s staches the size of caterpillars.

Heder and Taussig are careful not to make Miller and White — and ultimately Califano when he caves in to pressure and signs — into ableist saviors. The backbone of the film is very clearly the coalition led by Heumann, who frequently rubs fellow activists the wrong way — “I’m not an asshole. I’m just from Brooklyn,” she protests at one point — but is fully acknowledged as the driving force they need.

Among the key people involved in the occupation is Kitty Cone (Madeline Delp), whose insistence on civility prompts Judy to call her a Pollyanna; their friendship evolves in fits and starts with a lovely payoff in the closing scenes.

Antwan Tolliver has strong moments as Brad Lomax, a member of the Black Panthers with multiple sclerosis, who calls in reinforcements from the party to deliver food in a memorable scene. And Andrew Pilkington injects welcome humor into his portrayal of Hale Zukas, a pioneer in the Berkeley movement for independent living, who communicates with a pointer antenna attached to his head and an alphabet board — these were the days before smart tablets. “Disability is not a tragedy,” Hale writes, putting a key theme into words. “It’s a tremendous hassle.”

Among the allies, handsome military vet Jim Pechin (Jon Beavers) and out-and-proud lesbian Joni Breves (Roberta Colindrez) make warm impressions, both of them attracted to Judy’s “radical crip” energy. It’s a little obvious, but lobbing in the raucous Ramones classic “Judy Is a Punk” gives an extra kick to a breakthrough moment, and the wonderful Madeley earns it.

The dramatic momentum flags a little as the sit-in goes from days to weeks and the film nudges past the two-hour mark. But the characters and the disabled actors playing them are so engaging in their unbroken perseverance and their levity even in the face of harsh setbacks — a late-night raid by cops is especially hair-raising — that it’s impossible not to keep rooting for them. Their irrepressible joy is a tonic, and every sit-in should have a “sex tent” made of protest banners and American flags.