T he remarkable story of the late US disability rights campaigner and wheelchair user Judy Heumann – pronounced “human” – is the subject of this heartfelt if Hollywoodised story from director and co-writer Sian Heder, based on Heumann’s own 2020 memoir of the same title. In the lead is British actor Ruth Madeley , who has spina bifida and is herself a disability rights activist; she gives a forthright, smart, sympathetic performance.

Heumann’s finest hour was to get the federal government to sign into law Section 504 of the 1973 Rehabilitation Act , whose accessibility provisions had been resisted by Nixon, Ford and then Carter. In 1977, Heumann led a guerrilla sit-in occupation of the San Francisco Health, Education and Welfare offices, her group being a rainbow alliance including gay action groups and the Black Panthers. Secretary of State for Health Joseph Califano sensationally conceded and signed the bill that he and the political establishment had obstructed for years.…