Danny Corkill
A man's family comes for his 77th birthday and while he loves all of his children and their children, he and his children don't exactly connect. However, he connects with his grandchildren. And he tells them what he wants for his birthday and they do what they can to give it to him.
Based on true events, 'Alex: The Life of a Child' follows former 'Sports Illustrated' writer Frank Deford and his wife Carole when their happy, all-American family is rocked to the core when their baby daughter Alex is diagnosed with Cystic Fibrosis. While CF sufferers were almost certainly doomed to an early death in the Seventies, Alex grew into a child who showed remarkable courage and strength in face of her illness. Her loving family were quick to rally around her, determined to show the same bravery as the little girl as they supported and cherished her through life and struggled to move on after her death at the tragically young age of eight.
When shy school teacher Val and Harry, the son of an aged opera singer, get married, Val quickly discovers that Harry's mother, Barbara, is not very happy with their union. In fact, Barbara tries to separate the couple. But, when Barbara suffers a debilitating stroke, Val's compassion and empathy mend the rift between two women, giving Barbara the will to survive. But will Barbara learn to love her daughter-in-law?
Daryl is a normal 10-year-old boy in many ways. However, unbeknown to his foster parents and friends, Daryl is actually a government-created robot with superhuman reflexes and mental abilities. Even his name has a hidden meaning -- it's actually an acronym for Data Analyzing Robot Youth Life-form. When the organization that created him deems the "super soldier" experiment a failure and schedules Daryl to be disassembled, it is up to a few rogue scientists to help him escape.
Based on the case of young New Yorker Etan Patz, who disappeared in the early 1980s, this film casts Kate Nelligan as the distraught mother who lashes out at the police (in the person of a relentless detective played by Judd Hirsch), who make her and her husband suspects, even as she hounds them to find her child and drives away her husband (David Dukes) and friends (including Stockard Channing) with her intensity and single-mindedness. Squandered on a Hollywood ending that doesn't square with the real case: Etan Patz was never found.
