55 Steps
55 STEPS is the life affirming true story of an unexpected friendship forming during a fight for patient rights against seemingly impossible odds. When Eleanor Riese (Helena Bonham Carter) discovers that the medication she is being given at St. Mary's Psychiatric Hospital in San Francisco is damaging her physically she hires patient's rights lawyer Collete Hughes (Hilary Swank). With the help of expert attorney Mort Cohen (Jeffrey Tambor) the two try to defeat St. Mary's in court while the indefatigable Eleanor and Collette become best of friends; a friendship where the colorful psychiatric patient Eleanor teaches the work-obsessed Collette a thing or two about life itself!
30 July 1974, Lincoln, Nebraska, USA
14 October 1972, Lincolnshire, England, UK
11 May 1967, Wilrijk, Flanders, Belgium
1979, Honeybourne, Worcestershire, England, UK
8 February 1949, Nuremberg, Bavaria, Germany
26 May 1966, Golders Green, London, England, UK
8 July 1944, San Francisco, California, USA
1 August 1926, Cape Town, Cape Province, Union of South Africa
November 13, 2018
The wild-haired Carter has the flashier role and, although she digs into it with gusto, she's all over the emotional map.
November 08, 2018
Though 55 Steps, well, side-steps the alarming political issues, with the doctors in question as cover for the true medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex villains, at its core this film transcends class as a remarkable female bonding story.
October 07, 2017
It's a relatively interesting story that's given the movie-of-the-week treatment by director Bille August...
November 28, 2018
Somehow, these two difficult people are easy to watch, at least on the screen. They are honest to a fault, which is, in the end, their charm.
September 09, 2017
Fails to elicit memorable work from any of its principal collaborators.
September 15, 2017
The film does not end on the high note that I anticipated, but it does come full circle.
November 16, 2018
Considering the ramifications of its true-life story, this earnest legal melodrama about fighting the system never achieves the necessary urgency or poignancy.
September 08, 2017
Scene by scene you wish 55 Steps made you angrier than it does. Yet August's docile filmmaking acts as an emotional soporific, removing even the potential camp pleasures of Bonham Carter's histrionics.
