Richmond Times-Dispatch , 30 April 2005
By Douglas Durden

Could Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States, have led the country through the Great Depression and World War II if he hadn't contracted polio at the age of 39?

No, says HBO's "Warm Springs," with Kenneth Branagh doing most of the convincing.

Branagh, Irish born and king of the Shakespeare movies, stars as Roosevelt in this made-for-cable movie. This isn't the FDR of fireside chats or Winston Churchill summits. This is an angry Roosevelt; a Roosevelt who, after a privileged upbringing, is rendered a paraplegic by polio; a Roosevelt who thought his political career was over. His situation is obvious from the movie's first scene, where the future president, swimming in Florida, must be inelegantly hoisted aboard a ship in a fish net.

"Warm Springs," which features Cynthia Nixon as Eleanor Roosevelt and Jane Alexander as Roosevelt's mother, follows FDR to Georgia, where mineral-rich springs helped other polio patients regain their mobility. This won't be the case for Roosevelt. But his experiences at Warm Springs provided him with other rewards.

"He did seem to be having a kind of smooth, gradual ascent to what appeared to be the possibility of his birthright to become president, something he talked about from the age of 25," said Branagh, who specializes in both heroes (his Oscar-nominated role in "Henry V") and villains (his Emmy-winning role as General Reinhard Heydrich in HBO's "Conspiracy").

"But there was a relative isolation from the experiences of most people. In what was a seven-year search to try and find a way to walk again, he traveled the country and he tried all sorts of cures. He came across very many different people with whom he had a lot in common, i.e., they had the same physical challenge. So he was able to talk to people in a way that he hadn't before."

Although Branagh, interviewed earlier this year, says he's fascinated by history, especially World War II, his knowledge of FDR was limited. "But, once this job came along, it was a real education process for me in terms of the detail -- particularly the family background. I was not aware of quite how privileged he was; that he was an only child; that he went to school very, very late; the disappointment of not getting into the very special club at Harvard." (Branagh was referring to the ultra-selective Porcellian Club.) All of that was "meat and drink" to him, as was listening to FDR's speeches over and over again.

Plus, the cast had its own in-house expert -- Alexander, now cast as Roosevelt's mother, who played Eleanor in two previous TV movies, "Eleanor and Franklin" and "Eleanor and Franklin: The White House Years."

For Margaret Nagle, who wrote the script and whose brother had to learn to walk again following a car crash, the movie became a personal quest. "There's a whole two, three, four generations who don't know who Roosevelt is. They don't know what he meant. He served as president for 13 years. It's astounding -- the Depression through World War II. He died in office. I realize this is really uncharted territory; to say that we had a president who was paraplegic.

"To 'out' him as a disabled person was incredibly important," she says, pointing to the massive conspiracy of covering up Roosevelt's infirmity. For instance, very few photographs ever showed FDR in a wheelchair. "You read these quotes from the people surrounding him, 'He's fine. He's never down. He's always up.' Well, you can't be up when someone has to hold you up to go to the bathroom. It's an incredibly long road and it never ends. It was his whole life from 39."

"Warm Springs" underscores the struggle. Branagh, whose legs look thin and wasted, struggles to move them. The triumphs are small: the ability to stand while in the pool, having an automobile specially equipped with hand controls so he can drive.

FDR's real accomplishment at Warm Springs was in giving hope to others. Later, after he was persuaded to re-enter politics -- this is where the movie ends -- he begins to give hope to an entire nation, never letting it be known how incapacitated he really was.

"You could say he's like the poster boy for denial," said Branagh, awed by Roosevelt's determination, optimism and tenacity in the face of an unconquerable illness. "He just wouldn't acknowledge it."