Waking Up Wally: The Walter Gretzky Story
This inspiring and powerful story is based on the bookWalter Gretzky: On Family, Hockey and Healing, a memoir about Gretzky's long, long road back from a stroke that caused him, among other things, to lose all memory of son Wayne Gretzky's superior accomplishments in hockey. The relationship between Walter (Tom McCamus) and Wayne (Kristen Holden-Reid) is no more or less important in this film, however, than Walter's jeopardized connections with other family members, including his daughter, Kim (Tara Spencer-Nairn), and wife, Phyllis (Victoria Snow). Walter spends a year in rehabilitation re-learning the basics--how to button a shirt, how to comb one's hair, etc.--but it's after that the selectiveness of his memory proves confounding and cruel, such as grieving anew the death of his mother and struggling to recall his influence on Wayne. A therapist (Matthew Edison) who practically becomes a member of the Gretzky family turns out to be a big help (and a romantic interest for Kim).  But it's McCamus' amazing performance as a man who has lost large pieces of himself, and Snow's portrayal of a spouse who no longer recognizes the man in her bed, that carryWaking Up Wallyemotionally.--Tom Keogh