Minneapolis Star Tribune, 29 April 2005
By Neal Justin

Two crew members drop a net into the water and drag out a soaking cripple. Once aboard, their catch drags his dead legs across the dock, finds a post to lean against and begins to smoke and drink his woes away.

The man is Franklin Delano Roosevelt, and the scene is from the opening of "Warm Springs," the superb new HBO biopic that fully captures the president without once mentioning the Depression, World War II or fear itself.

This is a story about his battle with polio, which he contracted at the age of 39 with his political career in full stride. By the end, you'll be convinced that if he hadn't confronted the disease, Roosevelt would have failed to develop the strength, humanity and patience that made him one of the great Americans.

As played by Kenneth Branagh, an actor who brings Shakespearean gravitas to every role he tackles, the healthy Roosevelt was a live wire. Director Joseph Sargent ("Something the Lord Made") uses long tracking shots in flashbacks, showing Roosevelt striding across convention floors and taking strolls in the yard with his children draped across his body.

"So it's no wonder that when he can't get out of bed, the future president turns to mush. Sporting a days-old stubble and disappearing from civilization on a boat, he's one binge away from becoming Otis the Drunk. "There's a reason they say a man runs for office," he tells his exasperated aide, played by David Paymer.

His decision in 1924 to check out a health spa with so-called "miraculous waters" in backwoods Georgia isn't so much a desperate attempt to find a cure as it is a desperate attempt to disappear. Forever.

The bulk of the film documents Roosevelt's tedious progress there, not only as a patient, but as a human being. This is an upper-crust, born-to-the-manor golden child who can't even face other polio victims without cringing. But his stay at Warm Springs is marked by life-changing encounters.

There's the spa proprietor (Tim Blake Nelson), who isn't impressed by Roosevelt's résumé; the young victim (Matt O'Leary) who nearly dies on a train because the conductor banished him to the baggage car, and the physical therapist who helps inspire Roosevelt to dedicate his trust fund to upgrading the resort. She is played by Kathy Bates, who, fortunately, doesn't take a dip in the waters in the same garb she chose for "About Schmidt."

Then there's Eleanor, who, despite their long marriage, is a stranger. He calls her "Babs," but with the level of affection you would use for a neighbor's cat. Only when they make a speech together in hopes of getting scientific support for Warm Springs does he realize he's married to quite a gal. It doesn't hurt that Eleanor is played by Cynthia Nixon, who is so good in this role that you're not distracted by the presence of Jane Alexander, who played the same role in two landmark TV miniseries in the 1970s. Here, Alexander takes on the thankless character of Franklin's mother.

Roosevelt's exuberant moments -- like the one with Eleanor -- will give you more goosebumps than a season's worth of "American Idol." Don't miss the scene in which he climbs into a car with hand controls and sets off on a giddy road trip.

I don't know enough about Roosevelt to know if that moment really happened. I do know that he had a deep fear of house fires and made horrendous martinis, both of which are noted in the production.

What also has to be real is the spirit that Branagh brings to this performance. Only this kind of gumption can explain how Roosevelt would go on to become governor of New York and president of the United States.

In the climactic finale, as Roosevelt braves his way to the convention podium to nominate Al Smith for president, a reporter asks Eleanor if she believes polio has affected her husband's mind.

"Yes, I do," she declares with rising glee. "I certainly do."

So will you.