Emmanuel's Gift

Filmmakers Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern try to pre-nominate themselves for an Oscar with this mawkish, cloying and horrifically scored movie about the truly inspiring Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah. Yeboah was born with a severe deformity in one leg, but managed to overcome the intense prejudice of the Ghanaian people against the handicapped. He rode a bicycle around the country, started a charitable organization that gave wheelchairs to the needy and has become a leading activist and agitator for the rights of the disabled. Responding to his story, Lax and Stern have committed the unspeakable sin of hiring Oprah Winfrey to narrate an emoto-documentary about his life and struggles. The worst feature of this film is the incessantly swelling music by Jeff Beal, which constantly rises to tell us that Yeboah’s story is not only important and moving; it’s also Important and Moving.