Director Bille August’s 55 Steps at TIFF stars two of your favourite drama queens. Colette Hughes (Hilary Swank) is a San Francisco patients’ rights lawyer fighting the psychiatric establishment which is unwilling to cede its ability to medicate patients whenever and however it wants. She works with her mentor, Mort (Jeffrey Tambor) to represent Eleanor Riese (Helena Bonham Carter), a wildly eccentric woman living in a mental hospital who claims she has been medicated excessively agains her will.
The crux of the court case isn’t that Eleanor refuses medication; she is diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and requires drugs to get by day to day. Rather, she demands the right to give informed consent. Even if she has to do so kicking and screaming.
Fans of Erin Brockovich will adore 55 Steps as its shares similar themes: a passionate lawyer who is willing do the right thing at all costs, a groundbreaking court case and powerful female performances. The films haunting subject matter is filled with both laugh out loud moments (offered up by Bonham Carter’s quirky character) as well as plenty of feel good vibes, which will have anyone who has been touched by mental illness wiping away tears.
