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Learning
Difficulties Major 
>
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TITLE |
Flesh and Blood (2002) (TV Film) |
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DISABILITY |
Learning
difficulty |
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CAST |
Christopher Eccleston |
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NOTES |
A man, Joe (Christopher
Eccleston),who was adopted goes looking for his birth parents. He is
in his thirties married with a child. He doesn't appear to work
through an agency and goes about knocking on doors. He eventually
finds a woman whom he presumes is his mother but she denies she is.
It turns out that she worked as a a carer in a home for the mentally
handicapped where his mother and father were patients. She says
"They call it learning disability now."
His mother had a caesarian and never knew she had given birth. The
baby was adopted and given the carer's name.
Initially Joe walks away from this revelation afraid that his own
baby might be affected. And his wife has their baby put through a
series of check.
The home where his birth mother and father lived has closed down and
they both live (separately) in the community in sheltered
accommodation. Joe visits his father under the guise of being a
volunteer. Harry, his father (Peter Kirby), remembers nothing about
the past and tells Joe he is aged 38. Joe struggles to make
conversation and is disturbed by the meeting but he does return to
seek out Harry in a social centre which appears to be mainly for
people with learning disabilities. The situation in the centre also
appears to be improvised. And Harry, the father, like the birth
mother (Barbara Marten) is played by actors with learning
disabilities.
Joe's somewhat 'caged' attitude to the discovery of his parents is
typified by his surprise that Harry actually has a job. He also
inappropriately arranges for his birth mother and father to be
introduced to his family including his adoptive mother. Later he
tries to make up for this 'blunder' by having them around just with
himself and his wife.
By the end of the film Joe tells Harry that he is his father but
Harry simply doesn't understand.
This is a highly recommended film not simply for using actors with
disabilities but because it sets Joe's quest in the context of his
family and his work and reveals how his initial attitude to his
quest has to change faced with the realities of what he finds. We
feel by the end that Joe has learned from the experience even if
neither he nor his birth parents have gained emotionally. And
regretfully we don't know whether or not he kept in touch.
The emphasis in the film is on his father with whom he does have
some rapport. And it is possible that his mother has more severe
difficulites which make reaching out to her, for him, more
difficult.
Note: this film doesn't appear to be on DVD/Video |
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Notes
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