The Ledger, 30 April 2005
By Tom Shales, Television Editor and Critic, The Washington Post

Remember Kenneth Branagh, British actor and director and writer -- and haberdasher, for all I know? It was said the man could do anything. Well, he can't play FDR -- or so it seems for about the first half-hour of "Warm Springs," a new HBO movie premiering tonight at 8 on the pay-cable network.

But even if Branagh never "becomes" FDR in the fullest and most satisfying sense, his performance is certainly an accomplishment, a grand and robust portrait of a great American hero, one who almost missed his date with destiny because his body failed him.

And when it failed, it threatened to take FDR's spirit with it. He was a rising young star on the political scene roughly a century ago when fate dealt him a literally crippling blow: Polio, which robbed him of his physical strength and his ability to walk. Like any mortal, heroic or not, he considered giving up and abandoning what had promised to be a very public life.

His country needed him, needed him so much that he would eventually be elected president four times. He might have stayed in the White House longer if "this too, too solid flesh" turned out to be not solid enough. Even so, FDR looks in retrospect like the 20th century's Lincoln, a man who saved the country from collapse during the Great Depression and helped save the world from going to hell in World War II.

As the film opens, it looks like "On Golden Lake." Branagh as FDR pops out of the water -- suddenly, as if to make us jump in our seats the way the shark from "Jaws" did -- sticks a cigarette in that trademark holder of his, and sits back to reminisce for two hours.

What no one needs is another "Sunrise at Campobello," the sentimental play about FDR, his wife and times, that covered some of the same material. It was such a hit on Broadway that it was filmed virtually intact, like a stage play -- static and stuffy. But in keeping with the times, "Warm Springs," written by Margaret Nagle, is much edgier, and FDR is portrayed not as a one-dimensional darling but as a restless, ambitious and sometimes bitterly frustrated man.

Ironically, Jane Alexander -- who's played Eleanor at least once in her long career -- is on the scene, but this time playing FDR's snobbish and haughty mother, while Cynthia Nixon, of "Sex and the City," plays a shy, gawky Eleanor who is just learning to be assertive and firm and proud -- and she's a quick learner.

Branagh, under the direction of Joseph Sargent, shows us how naturally FDR took to politics and how the word "politician" can have some joy about it. It is, after all, the art of loving people. Posing with Boy Scouts at their summer camp, Roosevelt is every inch the politico, a man who wants to play a major role in his times and be a hero to people born silver-spoonless.

But romping with children like a kid himself, FDR suddenly falls to the ground, pained and pale. The doctor's diagnosis is one word, then horrifying: "Polio."

There might be no more story if not for an invitation FDR receives from George Foster Peabody, the philanthropist who founded the Peabody Awards in broadcasting (and this film is a good candidate to receive one). Peabody suggests FDR visit Warm Springs in Georgia where mineral water bubbles out of the ground at a therapeutic 90 degrees.

Throughout the film, we see FDR not as a living statue but as a man with flaws and vulnerabilities. He is deeply embittered about having been "selected" to suffer from a debilitating disease, but the small group of afflicted people whom he encounters at Warm Springs becomes a community, and FDR their de facto president.

Kathy Bates arrives halfway through the film as Helena Mahoney, a physical therapist who provides plenty of psychological therapy too. The movie builds toward a climax: FDR is to introduce Al Smith as the presidential candidate at the Democratic Party's convention. His real challenge will be "walking" to the podium as if he really can walk -- his feet in braces and his son Elliott, close by his side, to help sustain the illusion of mobility.

Smith, listening on the radio, is at first concerned about FDR's tumultuous reception but then asks, "Why am I worried? He'll be dead in a year."

David Paymer is also important to the film as Louis Howe, the right-hand man who never stops believing in FDR and clearly loves him like a brother. There are great set pieces, like FDR learning to drive a hand-controlled car, and such splendid sentimental scenes as Roosevelt bidding farewell to the wheelchair community at Warm Springs.

But the movie's tone is, finally, not sentimental but unflinching -- one chapter in the life of a man that is also a poignantly thrilling profile in courage.