Emmanuel's Gift - Palm Beach Post movie review

'Emmanuel's Gift' enshrines a Ghanian hero

By HAP ERSTEIN
Palm Beach Post

Moviegoers may begin by feeling superior to Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, a disabled young man from Ghana, West Africa, but by the end of the documentary Emmanuel's Gift, they are likely to be in awe and wondering why they cannot accomplish as much as he has.

First Look Pictures

'Emmanuel's Gift'

A-

The verdict: Documentary of a disabled Ghanian achiever, well told and visually striking.

Directors: Lisa Lax, Nancy Stern
Starring: Oprah Winfrey, Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah
Run time: 80 minutes
Release date: Oct. 21, 2005
Rating: G

On the web
Official movie site

Emmanuel was born with a severely deformed leg, in a country where 10 percent of the population is disabled, most of whom settle for begging on the streets.

Inspired by his mother to have higher goals, he wrote to California's Challenged Athletes Foundation asking for a bicycle, with which he rode across Ghana raising awareness of and attitudes toward disabilities.

It is a Forest Gump-like feat that led to him receiving a prosthetic leg, organizing a Paralympics team for Ghana and devoting his life to acquiring wheelchairs for others in his country and establishing laws of accessibility there.

For directors Lisa Lax and Nancy Stern, success was inevitable once they found Emmanuel, an astonishingly articulate, poised subject that the camera loves. For whatever commercial run the film may have, it does not hurt that they attracted Oprah Winfrey to narrate, which she does sparingly. Their shots of Ghana's landscapes and sunsets are stunning, as is Jeff Beal's jazz-tinged music score, but they had us won over with Emmanuel's struggle and achievement.