SXSW Review: David P. Zucker’s ‘Your Friend, Memphis’
The challenges and vicissitudes of living with cerebral palsy are made quite clear in Your Friend, Memphis, a sympathetic, up-close documentary that traces a few years in the life of a young man whose teenage optimism about his prospects narrows considerably as time marches on. It’s a poignant but ultimately tough tale that reflects a reality in which youthful hope almost inevitably gives way to the realization that, by one’s twenties, things are never going to get better, that life’s prospects decrease with age and the disappearance of family members and engaged helpers. As upbeat and determined as the subject is in his youth, grim facts at a certain point are impossible to ignore.