Is There Anybody Out There? (2023)

Ella Gledining presents us here with an emotionally charged documentary that follows her search for people with a similar disability to herself. She has a rare bone disorder which essentially means that she has bones missing from her legs. Aside from some fairly tortuous surgery when she would have been young, followed by some prosthetics, she was destined to remain smaller but otherwise just as intellectually capable, vibrant and ambitious as anyone else. We follow her determination to have a family (with the sparingly featured Scott) and then her own quest to use the internet to find others with whom she can share experiences, chat and perhaps bond. Glendining is an engaging lady who seems very much from the glass half full school of philosophy. Even when clearly exhausted - mentally and physically, she retains an optimism that together with their young son River seems to help sustain her when the black clouds loom. As ever, though, with one person filmmaking, it's not always the most objective of analysis about much of the rest of the population whom she routinely defines as "ableist". Her assertions that society suffers from this flaw is fairly flawed in itself. What is society? It isn't just some sort of concrete jigsaw puzzle into which her tiny piece uncomfortably fits. It's a myriad of different people, personalities, abilities, attitudes - and not many, I suspect, are actually as hostile or indifferent to those less able as she seems to think. "The world is better with the disabled in it"? Well who would argue? What is a disability anyway? Broader society is riddled with racism, homophobia, intolerances and we all live in a sort of Venn diagram model style of overlapping circles with each allowing for the differing aspects of human nature regardless as to how or if people may choose to compartmentalise themselves. Clearly this lady hasn't had a straightforward time, but she can come across as just a little inclined to paint everyone else with the same brush. A "normal" life is an entirely subjective term and what's great to see here is that she seems focussed on ensuring that her family have exactly that - work notwithstanding - and she presents us with an interesting look at just how she intends to live life to the full. Not perfect, but worth ninety minutes.