Straighten Up and Fly Right

“Hello world. How do you plan on fucking with me today?” There’s both a sadness and a strength to these words, as there is to this film. Kristen Abate, who also co-directed alongside Steven Tanenbaum, gives a brave raw performance as a young woman with Ankylosing Spondylitis, a rare inflammatory disease that has left her permanently bent over, a question-mark, a maybe poet and sometimes dog walker, a troubled and spirited and hopeful presence in the heart of New York. But Straighten Up and Fly Right is not about life with a disability. It’s about everyone that life touches: strangers who stare or look away, potential lovers, friends free to come and go, tiny connections with glimmers of hope. In the end, its power lies in putting us out there on the street with Kristen, asking the audience to consider our own lives, our privileges, our petty concerns. That’s this movie’s gift. (Woodstock Film Festival)