‘Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story’ will talk about the accident that changed the actor’s life

The trailer for Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story is out and it’s already making us reach for the tissues. The documentary is about the actor who played the Man of Steel onscreen until an accident changed the trajectory of his life, but didn’t stop him from being a real-life hero to many.

The documentary, which premiered earlier this year at the Sundance Film Festival to rave reviews, will take us through a terrible accident that caused Reeve severe spinal chord injuries, leaving him paralyzed from the neck down. This left Reeve incredibly discouraged until Dana Reeve and his family and friends convinced him that they loved him and needed him. But it is what the Superman actor did after, becoming an activist and advocate for others like him with spinal injuries and quadriplegia, that is the inspiring story at the heart of this documentary.

So what was the accident that sent Christopher Reeve’s life on an unexpected path?

At that time, Christopher Reeve was at a turning point in his career. He had already proven his mettle as the Man of Steel in the Superman franchise, and that had opened the door for him to get the pick of the lot, roles that were different than what he had already done, and they were now coming to him. Reeve was also already into activism, part of the artists’ advocacy group called the Creative Coalition, whose members included Glenn Close and Susan Sarandon (both of whom have been interviewed for the documentary).

But there was one more thing that Reeve absolutely loved doing—playing sports. As his son Matthew can be heard discussing in the documentary trailer, Reeve led an active lifestyle and was always playing some sport, like skiing, riding bikes, soccer, or tennis. In 1985 came Anna Karenina, a made-for-television film based on Leo Tolstoy’s book of the same name, in which Christopher Reeve played Count Aleksei Vronsky, and for which he learned horse riding. And soon, he was good enough to start eventing, i.e. participating in horse-riding competitions. He was considered a capable rider.

A few years later, in 1994, Reeve purchased a horse named Eastern Express and went on to participate in events, but it was on May 27, 1995, that the fateful accident happened. Reeve and Eastern Express were doing fine and at a good pace when they approached a three-foot rail jump and the horse made a refusal, i.e. a failure of the horse to make the jump over a fence. Reeve held on to the reins as he fell forward, got tangled in them, and landed headfirst on the other side of the fence.

The fall caused multiple fractures in his first and second vertebrae, which are closest to the skull, causing a cervical spinal injury and paralysis from the neck down. He was unable to even breathe without the help of a respirator, let alone make use of any of his limbs. However, his wife assured him that she was with him through and through, and the support of his family and receiving lifesaving medical treatment were enough to rebuild some confidence in Reeve.

After spending time at the Kessler Rehabilitation Center, where he met other patients with injuries like his, and owing to the media attention he was receiving, Reeve decided to advocate for increased efforts in spinal injury research, as well as promote a better life for people like him by proposing changes in disability legislation, including insurance payments and disability benefits when people return to the workforce. 

Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story will touch upon all of these moments in the actor’s life and is bound to make us cry, but also feel tremendously inspired by a man who claimed he wasn’t a hero, but showed the world what being one truly means.