Orlando Sentinel, 24 April 2005
By Hal Boedeker, Sentinel Television Critic

Franklin Delano Roosevelt cries, fumes and worries. He goes into seclusion and drinks heavily. He bombs as a public speaker before a small audience. He wallows in self-pity.

How's that for shattering a presidential icon?

HBO's 'Warm Springs', premiering Saturday, presents in starkly human terms the man who became the country's 32nd president. By concentrating on the personal rather than the political, the film becomes a refreshing portrait in polarized times. As FDR, Kenneth Branagh galvanizes the movie with a stirring performance.

'Warm Springs' explores how the brooding Roosevelt pulled himself together in the 1920s after contracting polio that left him paralyzed from the waist down. He found a purpose in life at a Georgia spa, where he rallied polio patients and extolled the medical benefits of swimming in the warm mineral waters.

The movie takes a more candid look at FDR's struggles than the play Sunrise at Campobello, which later became a 1960 film. In a new century, Margaret Nagle can write more frankly about Roosevelt's emotional turmoil and physical agony.

But she loads the last half with too many speeches urging Franklin to snap out of it. She falls back too often on a gossipy mail carrier for comic relief. She treats Eleanor Roosevelt (Cynthia Nixon) with superficial admiration as FDR's wife grows from wallflower to savvy public speaker.

Despite those lapses, 'Warm Springs' is mighty impressive. Under Joseph Sargent's sure direction, the film drops viewers back into an era when polio terrified the public. The sight of a patient could send swimmers scurrying from a pool.

To add to the authenticity, the film used the actual Warm Springs as a backdrop. Through poignant scenes, the film depicts how FDR found hope at Warm Springs, learned empathy and established a polio rehabilitation center.

'Warm Springs' sticks to the 1920s and concludes with FDR's speech to the 1928 Democratic convention. There he gave the illusion of walking to the podium, a stunt that allowed him to resume his political career.

Without going near the White House, 'Warm Springs' suggests the leadership that made FDR a revered president. The patients responded to FDR's inspirational style, just as voters did in 1932, when they elected him president the first of four times.

Superb acting stamps this as another winner for HBO. Branagh manages to be dynamic whether he's playing despair or excitement. Nixon, sporting fake teeth, puts Sex and the City well behind her to portray unglamorous Eleanor.

The movie comes studded with gemlike supporting performances. Tim Blake Nelson is heart-rending as the spa's proprietor. Branagh is pushed by formidable costars: Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as a determined physical therapist, David Paymer as devoted adviser Louis Howe and Jane Alexander as FDR's haughty mother.

Alexander's presence will remind many viewers of the two Eleanor and Franklin movies in which she played Eleanor. Those films were Emmy-winning landmarks in the 1970s. 'Warm Springs' might not be in their league, but it is a persuasive look at a historical figure who is often reduced to representing all that's good or bad about the federal government. The film reminds viewers that FDR was a man before he was an icon.

The personal approach carries extra punch because Roosevelt died at Warm Springs 60 years ago and listed the rehabilitation center as beneficiary of his $562,000 life insurance policy.

In our image-conscious age, it's startling to realize that a man who couldn't walk made it to the White House. That story will never lose its appeal. With conviction, 'Warm Springs' explains how it could happen.