When Siân Heder’s “CODA” premiered at Sundance in 2021 (during the festival’s online-only “pandemic year” and months and months before the film would go on to win Best Picture), it became an early favorite of mine. Mostly, I wrote in my review, though the “drama is marked by familiar beats, its characters bring new dimension to a staid genre.” The same can be said about Heder’s follow-up feature, “Being Heumann,” which brings real life back to the biopic, not only through innumerable compelling characters, but the smart choice to tightly focus this story on one essential moment in the life of the activist Judy Heumann.
When we first meet Judy (Ruth Madeley in a true star turn), she’s zipping along a busy New York City street in 1972. That might sound fun, but for Judy, it’s just the way things are; a wheelchair user since she was just a toddler (thanks to an early bout with polio), the world is not made for people like Judy, and she makes her way through it however she can. Often, that means doing things like, oh, zipping down city streets, because there are no curb cuts to assist her in smoothly moving from sidewalk to sidewalk. As Judy goes barreling down the street, people stare, drivers yell, and the brassy Brooklynite throws up a finger.
That Judy has natural presence is a given, but the central question of Heder’s film — which she adapted from Heumann’s autobiography alongside co-writer Rebekah Taussig — is how she will use all that verve to truly enact change. It’s the sort of concern that has always impacted great leaders, and suffice it to say, Heumann was indeed a great leader. But while Heumann’s long, storied life had many incredible chapters (she passed away in 2023, two years after she started working with Heder on the film), the filmmakers smartly zero in one on seminal slice of life to craft “Being Heumann.” Cradle to the grave this is not, but the film still succeeds mightily when contextualizing Heumann’s role in the disability rights movement and her singularity as a true American original.
That’s not to say that the period of time covered by the film — which soon jumps ahead five years — isn’t complicated and dense. The film opens in 1972, because that’s when Judy and eighty other activists staged a sit-in on Madison Avenue to protest the vetoing of Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act, which we’re told was one of the very first pieces of federal legislation meant to guarantee certain rights to people with disabilities (from accessibility to education). The act was eventually signed in 1973, but when the film picks back up in 1978, it has not been implemented. It needed one last step: a signature from newly-installed Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano (Mark Ruffalo). And he wasn’t signing.
Heder and Taussig’s script distills the legal wrangling down well: this piece of legislation will help bring about massive positive change for the disabled community, but it will cost a lot of money, and Califano has already been asked to slash the budget. These are excellent stakes.
Judy doesn’t care about the cost to the government — why should she? — but she does care about the cost to her community. A seasoned and dogged activist, most of the people in Judy’s life are disabled in some way, and it’s her mission to a) wrangle them into action and b) be pretty pushy about it. Heder and her casting directors Bernard Telsey and Adam Caldwell have assembled a wonderful, winning cast around Madeley (herself a wheelchair user), including a number of disabled performers, cast here as icons in their own right. Standouts include Madeline Delp as Kitty Cone (the honey to Judy’s vinegar), Andrew Pilkington as Hale Zukas, Antwan Tolliver as Brad Lomax, “CODA” star Daniel Durant as Steve McCleeland, Roberta Colindrez as Joni Breves, and instant star Charlie Rush-Reese as Dennis Billups.
That Heder would cast actually disabled people in these roles should seem obvious (this is the filmmaker behind “CODA,” after all), but there’s no question that it totally pays off all the same. The wide array of performers on offer here is thrilling, and it’s a treat to see them all settling in so well to this period world, rendered tactile and realistic by smart costuming choices by Danny Glicker and unfussy production design by John P. Goldsmith.
Enraged over the lack of movement on the signing of 504, Judy and her compatriots launch a series of protests around the country, focused on federal buildings that house HEW offices. Califano, stuck back in DC, can only hear about these events as they unfold, utterly stymied but what to do, paralyzed by fear for his job, and intent on reminding people he’s one of the good guys (he supported the Selma marches!). But the world has changed. When Judy somewhat impulsively leads a pack of protesters inside the SF federal building, what follows will only spark further change.
Despite the historical implications that follow — the SF sit-in became one of the country’s largest — Heder doesn’t noodle on the cultural vegetable aspect of this story. Instead, “Being Heumann” becomes something unexpectedly frisky and fun. The sit-in comes with plenty of challenges (beyond the myriad needs of the disabled community, there’s in-fighting to spare, government pressures galore, and deep worries about how it might actually pan out), but there’s also a streak of joy that runs through it. It’s thrilling to see people doing literally whatever they can for their well-being, and having a good time in the process (yes, you’ll get acquainted with their “sex tents” soon enough). There are almost too many colorful characters here, a sprawling ensemble in which everyone deserves their own film, though we occasionally lose some threads along the way.
That isn’t always easy for Judy, though, who remains set in her ways even as she sees real change happening around her. Madeley captures the real Judy Heumann’s energy beautifully; she’s funny and flinty and spiky and smarter than anyone else around her and totally driven by her sense of justice and equality. But that’s not always enough, a lesson that “Being Heumann” is not shy about. Fighting for what’s right involves just that, fighting. Sometimes, that even means fighting your own instincts.
A film like “Being Heumann” is destined to be called rousing — a call to action that’s every bit as entertaining as it is inspiring. It’s a film about tough choices and even tougher circumstances, but it’s also about the tangible good that can come from people working together. What could be more joyous than that? More biopics could learn from this formula, and from this feeling. Be more like Judy: be tough, but never be afraid of joy.
Grade: B+
“Being Heumann” premiered at the 2026 Toronto International Film Festival. Apple will release it in select theaters on Friday, November 6 and on Apple TV on Friday, November 13.
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