The charms of “Patrice: The Movie” are abundant — which doesn’t mean this inventive, warmhearted documentary, directed by Ted Passon, won’t infuriate. Much of the bristling will be on behalf of titular star, Patrice Jetter, and Garry Wickham, her betrothed. Or, at least, they would be engaged if the government Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits program reflected the evolving moment when it comes to the lives — and loves — of people with disabilities.
Administered by the Social Security Administration, SSI’s “marriage penalty” means that if these two beloveds get married — or even cohabitate — they’ll either lose their benefits or have them drastically cut. Garry would lose his medical insurance. The rule was written in 1972, when those enacting laws didn’t imagine people with disabilities having loving, even independent lives. It has remained unchanged.
Patrice and Garry met while working and started off as friends. Living with cerebral palsy, Garry uses a wheelchair. One of Patrice’s legs is in a brace. We first see them together as an ice-skating pair competing for a spot in the Special Olympics.
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Early on, Patrice declares, “I am a totally cool person with a disability. If I see something fun, I do it.” And who are we to doubt this can-do soul who wears long braids and eclectic garb? Among the activities on her fun list: being a crossing guard; building model trains, which she’s done for over 25 years; drawing; and, of course, spending time with Garry at his place or hers. In her house, a little amusement park burg called “P Town” has pride of place. His home is festooned with Notre Dame and New York Giants memorabilia.
“Garry is only 20 minutes way,” Patrice says in her indelible husk of a voice. “But it feels like a long-distance relationship.” After sharing that his parents were bigots, Garry, says, “I’m tired of people telling me who I can and can’t share my life with.” Patrice is Black and Garry is white, but that they are an interracial couple is otherwise unremarked upon.
The two embark on a commitment ceremony despite the fact it could create benefits woes. Living on tiny, fixed incomes, they are mindful that their gathering needs to be a DIY affair. Pulling off the ceremony was already going to be a challenge, but when Patrice’s van breaks down, she and Garry face economic catastrophe.
Passon ably weaves the legal and legislative challenges into the hurdles that Patrice, Garry and others face daily, weekly, monthly. We follow the couple and their friend, Elizabeth Dicker, as they join protests, consult with disability rights lawyers and take a meeting with Congressman Jimmy Panetta, sponsor of the Marriage Equality for Disabled Adults Act.
Dicker, who has sensory sensitivity issues, nearly upstages the film’s central pair. When she begins pacing and flapping her hands, she tells the filmmaker that people often think these gestures are signs of her spinning out, but, she says, “this is me calming down.” It’s no small matter for Dicker to marshal a “Cans for a Van” project to collect and sell aluminum cans. They clatter. They smell. It’s a lot.
Although the filmmaker doesn’t name Patrice’s disability, we come to understand that she has had a history of being in and out of institutions because she was unable to find consist support in her upbringing. Generational trauma is a theme. A poster on the wall of Patrice’s home offers a quote from Abraham Lincoln that encapsulates Patrice’s outlook: “The best way to envision your future is to create it.”
The movie embraces that aim, but also turns it on its head. “The best way to remember past trauma is to recreate it” might sum up the documentary’s impish — and wrenching— use of re-creations. In vignettes throughout the movie, Patrice portrays her younger self amid an ensemble of child actors (more than 100; some with disabilities) who play people from Patrice’s past in scenes that capture how many times she was rebuffed (intentionally and not) by people and systems. Wearing a wig and glasses, Milanni Mines does notable work as Lee Jetter, Patrice’s strict and exasperated mother.
Documentaries have started to ask better questions and depict people with disabilities with verve, wit and no small measure of anger and flaws. It’s no surprise that this ongoing shift has been prodded by filmmakers and creatives with disabilities. (Think Reid Davenport’s “I Didn’t See You There,” shot from his wheelchair perspective.) An executive producer on “Patrice” is James LeBrecht, who co-directed and made more than a cameo in “Crip Camp”: his and Nicole Newnham’s watershed documentary about how the Americans with Disabilities Act was won, featuring the people who won it.
“Patrice” resists what some might accuse of “inspiration porn,” in which the very fact of having a disability is cause for audiences to cheer. Yet, its hero, her fella and her loving cadre still inspire — on their own terms.