Director: Dominic Gill
MPAA Rating: NR
Runtime: 85 minutes
A lone man pushes a wheelchair through the vast, unforgiving expanse of 20 uncharted miles of Death Valley back to civilization. Far from the psychedelic runoff of an uncontained Lynchian experiment, director Dominic Gill is documenting the final symbolic journey of motocross rider Aaron Baker, who in 1999 broke his neck and severely damaged his spinal cord, resulting in paralysis and significant mobility reduction with little hope of recovering.
The journey itself is little more than a metaphor for the past 16 years of life, where no matter how daunting the goal was (be it traversing a desert or regaining his motor functions and independence), all he could do for the sake of progress was take it one step at a time and inch ever closer to his goal, but the stunt speaks for itself as the focal point to Gill’s film.
It’s a powerful, Sisyphean-esque image Baker filmed…like he is lost in the immensity of his surroundings – pushing what he once depended on, as if it is his own boulder – that I was thankful we kept returning to to break up the rather rudimentary approach Gill takes with the rest of his exploration of Baker’s journey back to mobility.
While it may be the prevalent image of Coming to my Senses, the journey itself is not as dwelled upon as you would assume because the bulk of the film is spent cataloging Baker’s life from the accident up to that point. The film is constructed using your standard formula of archived photos/footage mixed with talking-head interviews of the ones involved. It traces Aaron’s progress from the accident to being told he may never walk again to the struggle of finding a physical therapist to work with him to, finally, the long, arduous journey back to the mobility he once knew.
It’s formulaic in the way all documentaries tend to be if we were to get down to the brass tacks of it, but the story and subject prove uplifting, rousing and genuine as to cut through this perceived monontomy of the genre. Aaron himself carries the film as the enigmatic host, whose blue-collar black humor about his condition and unwavering determination endear him instantly to the audience.
His road to recovery is a harrowing one and is properly rendered through what looks like hours of intimate therapy footage and some spotty – possibly unnecessary – recreations that stick out awkwardly with the rest of the footage. From the accident, he is bounced around between physical therapists after his insurance no longer covers his treatment, an lamentably relatable problem.
He is taken in by physiotherapist Taylor Kevin Isaacs, who pushes him on a regiment that got him to the point where he could walk through the desert in the present. Over the 16-year period, Baker expresses some misgivings and complaints about the state of healthcare in the United States, but unfortunately the film isn’t poignant enough on these fronts to really make a statement about this.
This proves to be the primary issue with Coming to My Senses because, outside of the one-man journey back to mobility, Gill seems hesitant to draw a conclusion or make an argument out of Baker’s story outside of just wanting to share it with others, for which it cannot be faulted. Senses is light, unchallenging fare that does precisely what it sets out to do and presents you with this remarkable young man who fought overcame his prognosis of never walking again, and that is enough.
As a subject, he earns that title of inspirational even outside of the central stunt of him traversing the desert. The film gives teriterary attention to Aaron’s other accomplishments on his road to recovering, such as starting his own physical therapy center (C.O.R.E.) in 2011, attempting to compete in the Paralympics in cycling and, yes, even cycling across the United States with his brother on a tandem bike.
Even for the 86 minutes that we get, there is a lot to cover, and perhaps this film would have benefited better as a miniseries on ESPN or something similar. Combing 16 years of an uphill battle to fit into an hour-and-a-half runtime leaves a lot of interesting detail on the floor and, honestly, I wouldn’t mind knowing more about Aaron Baker and his work. What is left in is serviceable, but it is far from the larger picture it suggests.
With a lot of inspirational documentaries to choose from, once you’ve all gotten off your serial-killer-doc kick, the humble Coming to my Senses has the potential to charm you with its straightforward, uncomplicated tale of overcoming adversity.
