Mark Reviews Movies: GABBY GIFFORDS WON'T BACK DOWN

Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down, Briarcliff Entertainment

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Review by Mark Dujsik | July 14, 2022

One must give credit to directors Julie Cohen and Betsy West for their continued optimism about the capacity of the United States government, the legislatures of the country's various and varied states, and American society in general to do something—any damn thing, at this point—to stop or at least diminish gun violence and especially mass shootings in this country. Such positivity is increasingly and depressingly feeling like wishful, hopeless thinking.

The filmmakers' Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down completed filming earlier this year. This review is being written in the recent aftermath of a U.S. Supreme Court decision that struck down a New York state law putting some restrictions on people carrying concealed firearms and the even more recent aftershock of yet another mass shooting—this one at a parade, celebrating July 4th, in an affluent Chicago suburb.

By the time you're reading this, who knows how many more acts of mass slaughter by means of firearms will have been committed? As a society, we appear to have taken the route of inactivity and numbness, while government bodies work—when they actually pass legislation or make judicial decisions—in the opposite direction of what could be done to stop a very obvious, very growing, and very deadly problem.

Anyway, here's a documentary about Gabrielle "Gabby" Giffords, a former member of the U.S. Congress from Arizona, who was almost killed in an assassination attempt outside a grocery store in her home district of Tucson. That was on January 8, 2011—before countless mass shootings and the heightened political division in the United States, which makes other murder attempts like this one feel like a sad inevitability.

Six people were killed, including a federal judge and a 9-year-old girl. In case anyone forgets, nothing was done on a government level after that, just as nothing would be done almost two years later when 26 people—20 of them children aged 6 or 7 years old—were murdered with a semi-automatic rifle at an elementary school in Newton, Connecticut. Anyone with any sense knows that was the tipping point for this country—its people and its government bodies—and its unwillingness to act in any way that might prevent such unnecessary tragedies.

The film does get to this idea, through Giffords' story, of course, and also through interviews with the likes of her husband Mark Kelly, the astronaut who has since become a U.S. Senator for Arizona, and Barack Obama. His visible mourning as President after that elementary school shooting and anger after the failure of Congress to pass any sensible firearm legislation—even bipartisan ideas—have since become a clear sense of engrained disappointment and resignation on the issue. The man who campaigned on hope has become like so many of us, because we see how seemingly impossible change can be.

The first half or so of the film details the shooting, in which an armed attacker shot Giffords in the head before firing indiscriminately into the assembled crowd, and Giffords recovery. Kelly and a friend set up a camera and recorded Giffords in her hospital bed, where we can and need to see the effects of such violence in such practical and medical terms, and through the processes of physical and speech therapy.

In addition to leaving her paralyzed on the right side of her body, the bullet damaged the part of Gifford's brain that controls speech. The footage of her struggling to find and use words to communicate, as well as the frustration of not understanding what's happening to and within her own body, is as devastating as witnessing her relatively fast improvements is inspiring. Both Giffords, as much as she can, and Kelly acknowledge that such a near-miraculous result is rare and likely was only possible because of government health plan afforded to her as a member of Congress.

The rest of the film is a mixture of Giffords' continued recovery—regular appointments with a speech therapist, which eventually have her recording ads and making speeches at events for Kelly's political campaign—and her efforts, through surprise testimony at a Senate hearing and public appearances and a political action committee, to promote gun safety regulations on both state and federal levels. In between those stories, we also see just how strong the bond between Giffords and Kelly is in their shared passion for politics (although Kelly needs some help from his wife to stop rushing through his speeches) and the ways in which they support each other.

The up-close-and-personal material, particularly in observing Giffords in every stage of her recovery thus far, is the most compelling element of Cohen and West's documentary, which has seemingly unfettered access to its main subjects and all of that distressing but ultimately encouraging footage of Giffords in the hospital. On a political level, the film's discussions and portrayal of Giffords' efforts to stem gun violence might have come across with equal degrees of distress and encouragement even about half a year ago, when this narrative ends. Through no fault of their own (except, perhaps, in their innocent optimism), the filmmakers' intrinsic belief that right spokesperson (Giffords is and makes a point of being a gun owner), the right political angle, and the right use of language could implement change comes across as shallow and naïve.

That's not on them or Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down, of course. It's a fine-enough message for a less-cynical time and system than the ones we've created for ourselves.

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