Transplant movie Ordinary Angels scores at box office with Swank
A couple of women who’d just seen the extraordinary new organ transplant movie Ordinary Angels were overheard comparing the intensity of their crying, which one claimed was “throat-hurting.” She said her husband, who’d already exited the theater, perhaps to conceal his own tears, was a heart recipient and thus desperately wanted to see the film.
Fact is, the real-life father portrayed in the film, Ed Schmitt, said the actual events – in particular seeing hundreds of strangers plow a parking lot in a blinding snowstorm for the helicopter that would whisk up his young daughter just barely in time for a liver transplant – “tore me apart. I fell to pieces. It touched me deeper than I’ve ever been touched in my entire life.”
Likewise the film, lovingly shot and expertly spliced together by director Jon Gunn (of monster hits American Underdog and Jesus Revolution), and a roster of top-notch producers including the Erwin Brothers, will leave millions touched deeply.
In fact, the film has already grossed about $20 million since its February 23 release, and scores 85% and 99% among critics and audiences, respectively, at RottenTomatoes.com.
I like going into movies knowing very little and letting the story unfold, and did so in this instance. If you’re the same, stop reading here and just trust me: Go. See. This. Movie. Now.
Organ transplants are extraordinary lifesaving events in any case, but you can see why this operation — which involved much more than surgery — was made into the organ transplant movie Ordinary Angels.
First off, it involved a tender, dying young girl (5 years old in the movie, 3 in real life). Then there’s the widowed father who was buried under a blizzard of bills; the stranger who steps up and steps into the family’s life to raise awareness and funds – and to relentlessly plow a path to the distant transplant hospital; and all those ordinary angels in the media, church community and city of Louisville, Kentucky who somehow got little Michelle through the January 1994 record-setting, city-paralyzing snowstorm and to her lifesaving flight.
Rarely have so many mobilized through such difficulty to save one person’s life.
The amazing true story not only will lift your spirit, but raise a question in you: What if life were always like this? What if people devoted themselves so utterly to caring for others as the good people of Louisville did in this moment?
You also have to wonder: Have what they call “faith-based” films gone completely mainstream in their appeal and respect? This film sure has.
Along with Gunn’s gifted touch, the actors’ performances here rank from solid to sensational. Hilary Swank gives what already will be one of the best performances of the year as Sharon Stevens, the single mother who relentlessly tries to help. And Alan Ritchson is pitch-perfect as a tough, proud country man whose broad shoulders are buckling.
Meanwhile, Emily Mitchell as Michelle and Skywalker Hughes as her slightly older sister Ashley are astoundingly adept at acting their characters’ age while doing so far beyond their years.
There are more subtle storylines here than meet the eye, too.
Ordinary Angels is about an extraordinary organ transplant, to be sure. But at bottom, it’s about caring for those you may not even know; the life-changing meaning one can find in doing so; the strength and wisdom in persevering in the face of insurmountable challenges; and the fact that it is, indeed, a wonderful life – if we just marshal the will and the masses to make it so.
