Slamdance 2022 Film Festival – Kristen (Kristen Abate) lives with an excruciating illness most people have never heard of. Ankylosing Spondylitis is a type of arthritis mainly affecting the spine, chest, and pelvis. Kristen has a severe case, and at a very young age already has the body of a much older person. Desperate to remain independent, she walks dogs for a living in New York City, and does anything and everything she can to maintain human connection beyond the stares and shouts she gets on the street. Faced with a life and a body that’s falling apart, Kristen must “straighten up” – or risk losing what little she has.

Based partially on the real life experiences of writers Steven Tanenbaum and Kristen Abate, Straighten Up And Fly Right was a concept born from a pivotal moment in history — when then-candidate Donald Trump chose to mock a disabled reporter on live television. Tanenbaum is disabled, and poured his heart into writing this experience. Abate and Tanenbaum are chosen family – and she spent years as his eyes and ears, and lifeline – as he was hers. While Abate is not physically disabled as her character is in the film, she took it into her heart to share Tanenbaum’s story and write a fictionalized version of their unique relationship.

Straighten Up And Fly Right is a heartwrenching, heartwarming glimpse into the life of millions of people all around us — who, at least most of the time, never earn a second glance. If they do get that second glance they’re often mocked and sometimes even maimed – for no reason other than the body they were born in. The physical pain they endure is matched only by the emotional anguish they experience as outsiders in a world that only has room for the “perfectly-abled.”

I chose to review Straighten Up And Fly Right – part of the Unstoppable series at Slamdance – because I myself am physically disabled. While I live with invisible illness, there was much about Kristen’s story I identified with — her ache for normalcy, for physical affection, for a life that is anything like what she’d planned as a child. Her dreams are muted by the screams of her illness. Everything that should be simple is made to be so hard. Straighten Up And Fly Right does a beautiful, and often uncomfortable, job of bringing these intricacies of illness to the screen.

Beautiful performances and a beautiful rendition of chosen family are the glue that hold this story together. A cast of true-to-life supporting characters inject charm and heart into a story that could easily be depressing but rather leaves us feeling encouraged and hopeful. Even the most heartbreaking moments of this theatrical drama are broken by real life human connection and humor. Abate and Tanenbaum’s chemistry is palpable and their relationship bursts through the screen and into our hearts.

My hope is that this combination of life and fiction – casting both abled and disabled actors in these roles – will open the door to more stories like this being told, with more disabled and unconventional bodies at the forefront. It’s time for us to tell our stories – loud and proud.

Straighten Up And Fly Right made its World Premiere at the 2022 Slamdance Film Festival.

9 Out of 10