Tearjerker melts your heart

This true-life story  of rodeo rider Amberley Snyder’s smashed  spine and shattered dreams after a near-fatal  car crash  reminded me of  a mawkish 1975  tearjerker named The  Other Side Of  The Mountain which was  about ski-racing champ  Jill Kinmont who was left paralyzed after a  gruesome skiing accident.

Some  such tragedy befell  Amberley Snyder. This  is  the story of  how Amberley (played  by Spencer Locke) rebuilt her life from her wheelchair with considerable help from her ever-supportive mother Tina (Missi Pyle).

Though the overall  presentation plays it strictly by  the rulebook prescribed for all such crash-to-climb weepies,  There are  episodes  here that rise above the  given  scenario. Amberley’s crash and the  ensuing horror and  rescue are recorded in excruciating detail. It shook me to realise again how one split second can alter our lives  irrevocably.

 Not that we need one more film about a paralysed  victim soaring to heroic heights, to realise how precious every moment is. Nonetheless this film has its heart and  tropes  in the correct place, leaving us with no scope to  be skeptical.

While the  central emotion  of  gathering  one’s life after a  life-changing  fall is  indisputably  genuine, sadly  the central  performances are barely convincing.The two actresses in the lead make all the right noises and  moves  but remain largely restricted to the functional zone. There  is  so much that  more competent actors could have given to this emotional drama.

Amberley’s journey from ‘frozen’ to ‘soaring’ doesn’t  quite take wings as  strongly as  it ought to have.There are several passages that needed  fleshing out, for instance her  relationship with her therapist after her accident. The sudden appearance  of a prince charming to sweep her off her  wheelchair-bound feet  also  seemed  incongruous. But all in all, this is a film  about the assertion  of  the life-force  that  must be seen for what it  says rather than how it chooses  to say it.