QUICK’N DIRTY: LIVE FROM TALLINN

Appropriately coming from the Youth section of this year’s PÖFF is Wheelie, a story that feels authentically fuelled by the energy of our younger years, while also dealing with a subject that is grounded in drama.

The film follows Reza (Samuel Beau Reurekas), a good-looking, charming 21-year-old who enjoys life to its fullest by partying, skating, and hooking up with girls. Unsure what he wants to do with his life, or perhaps unwilling to commit, he books a backpacking trip to Thailand. While there, he suffers a devastating accident that leaves him paralysed from the waist down, and in need of a wheelchair. Returning to his Dutch home, he deals with the oppressive support of his family, some lost friends, and the sudden need to care for himself. Faced with this crossroads moment, Reza must finally decide what it is that makes him happy.

Many famous films have wrongly treated disability as a tragedy – the protagonist of one of the most successful films of all time, Avatar (James Cameron, 2009), had his wheelchair use framed as a death sentence he wished to escape at any cost. Happily, this film is quite as ignorant. Reza’s accident is presented as trauma, and a catalyst for him finding direction in his life. It is never presented as something that makes him someone for the audience to pity. If anything, the main antagonism of his story is the attitudes of others. It’s interesting to find those around him using his situation as a means to avoid their own issues, something that is fought against in a passionate third act.

There’s also the unsettling prejudice, such as a scene where an application for a film school is dismissed by onlookers as a “diversity hire”, or one particularly brutal club scene where girls who would once have fawned over him now say they would have “killed themselves” in his position. It’s a well-written reminder that the difficulties of being different often come from other people’s attitudes, regardless of intention.

Reurekas is deeply empathetic as the lead, giving the sort of laid-back performance that reminds you of that moment between childhood and adulthood where you’re not quite ready to take everything seriously. However, he reveals some depth beneath the calm charisma, showing some damage that the smiles try to cover up. Of the supporting cast, Olga Zuiderhoek is fun as Lydia, a grizzled fellow patient who cuts through the niceties.

The film ends somewhat neatly, and a somewhat repetitive soundtrack doesn’t always capture the emotion of the moment. Wheelie is a passionate portrait of what it is to be young, and be thrown into the seriousness of adult life.

Wheelie premiered in the Just Film section of the 29th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival.