Kelly & Cal Review

There are so many reasons Jen McGowan's Kelly & Cal should fall flat.  It's a tale of an unlikely friendship between a lonely housewife and her handicapped high school neighbor, a premise that is ripe for cliche and, worse, creepiness.  Yet the film is astounding, a carefully calibrated tale of kindred spirits, disillusionment, and fantasy.  Amy Lowe Starbin's deft screenplay takes on the potential sentimentality head-on, resulting in a boisterous take on two characters whom viewers think they already know, but are endlessly surprising and endearing.

When a film is named for a character or two, those eponymous folks ought to be intriguing, and both Kelly (Juliette Lewis) and Cal (Jonny Weston) are just that.  This is a film that dares its viewers to look beyond the surface.  When we meet Kelly, we see a new mother apparently suffering from postpartum depression.  Cal, at first glance, is a horny teenager who, like most boys his age, lacks a filter.  But when their first interaction ends, the first wrench is thrown into the story: as Cal moves away, Kelly discovers that the inappropriate comments were coming from the mouth of a kid in a wheelchair, and the guilt settles in.

Handicapped characters in movies are often vehicles for inspiration and sympathy, and they've been used well in both roles numerous times.  Watching characters with various disabilities overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles is incredible.  But it's rare indeed to find a handicapped character whose handicap almost functions as an afterthought; that's Cal.  Kelly & Cal confronts the practically passive ableist mindset of the general public.  Cal calls Kelly out for her undue sympathy, the way her demeanor changes when she realizes he's in a chair.  She grows into the one person who sees Cal and only Cal, not the way he gets around.  Kelly comes to tell Cal, "You can't define yourself by the things you lost," a lesson she learns along the way, too.

It's a pair of quiet powerhouse performances.  Without these fine actors filling the roles, Kelly & Cal would likely prove a thoroughly unsettling affair.  The relationship between the characters is drawn in blurred lines.  What starts as a tentative friendship takes on nuances of punk-rock kinship (resulting in a shocking new hairdo on Kelly's part), mother-son affection, and May-December romance.  Each scene between the two is dynamic, the characters' footing always precarious, the stakes always high and intimate.  Lewis plays Kelly as a lost soul trying to understand her place in the world, a woman trying to define herself in the face of society - notably her husband's family - labeling her a depressed mother.  Cal, on the other hand, is all confidence and swagger, pulling off grand gestures and nearly always keeping his cool; Weston is the year's unlikeliest, and most swoon-worthy, heartthrob.

The film is a clever critique of how we see differently labeled people; as Kelly toes the line of appropriate interactions with Cal, her family never questions her.  They believe she's serving as a mentor in a charity program.  Even when Cal shows up at the door in a dapper suit, Kelly's husband, the ever-distracted Josh (Josh Hopkins), doesn't bat an eye.  It's the perfect affair, or would be, if Kelly gave herself over to Cal's ardent affection.

McGowan wisely steers the film carefully through tricky territory, finding moments of distant passion and deep feeling without her characters doing anything too unseemly.  And, more importantly, there are consequences to their actions.  Kelly and Cal find that their fun, and their carelessness, hurt people, including themselves.  The relationship between them bears so much good, effectively giving them both motivation to keep on keeping on, but they don't protect each other, or their loved ones.

The film's climactic scene takes place at an art show, and brings with it words of wisdom that are telling within the film, and without.  When we place someone on a pedestal, as Cal does with Kelly, they only show how they don't deserve to be there.  Idolizing someone, even in the throes of love, is a dangerous game; no one can live up to the fantasies we contrive in our minds, or in our art.  Which is a comment, too, on Kelly & Cal's place within the pantheon of films featuring handicapped protagonists: not every kid in a wheelchair is going to inspire the world or do great things.  Sometimes, he's just a mouthy neighbor looking for some sort of authentic connection in an unfair world.  Cal's hope and zeal are pretty inspiring in and of themselves.