'Being Heumann' Review: Strong Sit-In, Flat Back Half — SkimNews
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- Being Heumann — Sian Heder's biopic of disability rights activist Judith Heumann — premiered at the Toronto film festival, with a theatrical release set for 6 November and an Apple TV debut on 13 November.
- Ruth Madeley leads as Heumann, with Mark Ruffalo playing a government official resisting the protesters and Dylan O'Brien as a reporter who changes his mind mid-story; the film also features what the reviewer calls perhaps the largest cast of disabled actors they've seen.
- The film's strongest stretch dramatizes the nearly month-long 1977 sit-in at the San Francisco office of the US health, education and welfare department, with Heumann leading the charge — a sequence the reviewer calls 'a procedural lark' that captures the smoky, late-70s anarchy of the movement.
- The review faults Heder for letting the picture deflate after that middle section into 'a competent recitation of facts,' arguing Madeley is given only tenacity to play without enough personal history to explain Heumann's fury.
- Heumann was a prominent disability rights leader from the 1970s until her death in 2023 and previously appeared in the Netflix documentary Crip Camp; curb cuts and accessibility ramps are cited as ubiquitous infrastructure she helped force into existence.
- The reviewer draws an unflattering comparison to Gus Van Sant's Milk, saying Heder's film stops short of the 'soulful, more textured and idiosyncratic' docudrama that biopic about San Francisco systemic fights can achieve.
- Where Variety frames the film as 'crowd-pleasing' and a likely Apple Oscar contender and IndieWire calls it 'essential,' this review lands as the dissenting voice — praising the ensemble and the sit-in but finding the film ultimately a 'polite homage' rather than a textured portrait.
Why it matters: Being Heumann arrives as Heder's follow-up to her Oscar-winning Coda at a moment when Hollywood rarely centers disability, and its November release positions it for awards season. The Guardian's mixed verdict matters because it identifies a structural shortfall — the film captures the movement's energy but withholds the personal history that would make Heumann a person rather than an emblem — even as Variety and IndieWire frame it as a likely awards player.
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