Human interest, a true story that is almost impossible to believe ever happene and excellent acting are just some of the accolades that describe just about one of the best movies about a real event that I have ever seen.
The story of the new movie “Ordinary Angels” is about a hairdresser Sharon Stevens, played by Hilary Swank who is a serious alcoholic who refuses to admit she has a problem. Sharon is a person who is looking for a purpose, perhaps to make sense of her life of constant drinking, being divorced for many years, and estranged from her only son, who hates her. Sharon sees a picture of a 5-year-old girl in a local newspaper who needs a liver transplant and her life is transformed. After seeing this one article in the paper, all Sharon cares about is saving this child and her family.
Ed Schmitt, played well by Alan Ritchson is a married man with two daughters who lost his wife Theresa to an illness in 1993 when she was only 35 years old. To make matters worse, Ed had a hospital debt of 432 thousand dollars for the time Theresa was dying in the hospital. Ed then gets the news that his adorable 5-year-old daughter Michelle Schmitt, played by Emily Mitchell needs a liver transplant due to a rare liver disease. The weekly and monthly hospital bills to save Emily are both endless and outrageously high, threatening the family’s livelihood with additional worries of potentially losing their home. The life of Ed Schmitt considering what he had to endure with first losing his wife and then the fear over his severely ill daughter is at times, very hard to watch. This story is one of the worst examples of real life hardship I have ever seen in any film.
Making Ed’s life worse is a severe tornado that severely damages the family home in Louisville Kentucky, ever-increasing his problems and overwhelming debt. Then Sharon Stevens steps in and devotes her entire life to helping Ed with his financial problems and also tries to save the life of his 5-year-old daughter.
The best scene in this entire movie was the meeting between Sharon and the callous, cruel representatives of the medical insurance company, who could have cared less that a 5-year-old girl would die and her entire family ruined because of overwhelming medical bills of 432 thousand dollars. Sharon asked them to eliminate the entire bill and when one of the representatives laughed at her request she asked, “Did I say something funny”.
Another one of the many problems that Sharon had to deal with was Ed Schmitt and his male ego that over time, started to resent Sharon’s constant help, forgetting that under the extreme circumstances of criminal medical bills and his 5-year-old daughter dying, the only thing to do was to accept as much help as possible. There is no way anyone could deal with problems this extreme by themselves, facing something like this. Within a situation this extreme, the pride of any man wanting to take care of his own family should take a back seat. Additionally, the ending of this movie is so unbelievable it’s almost impossible to believe that it really happened.
I thought the acting in this movie was great, with Hillary Swank giving her greatest performance since “Million Dollar Baby”, released in 2005. Alan Ritchson (who currently is the star of the Amazon Prime “Reacher” series) is also very good in his role of a father who is overwhelmed with horrible grief and worry. Actress Nancy Travis is also very good in the role of Ed Schmitt’s mother.
Once again, the Rotten Tomatoes ratings of only 80% are way too low with some of critics not even liking this great film about empathy (so rare in this world) and a great person helping others in need. My rating for this film is 95% and a very strong recommendation. Unfortunately like last years “Air” released in April 2023, this movie has been released too early for Oscar consideration.
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