Independent Film Festival Boston 2009

Director Laura Longsworth in attendance.

Misfortunes and business concerns: two factors that will challenge even the closest family. The Luckey clan is learning to navigate both almost simultaneously. Tom Luckey, age 65, is a world-class sculptor of children’s abstract climbing structures. His company serves prestigious clients such as the Lincoln Park Zoo and the Children's Museum of Memphis. But a fluke fainting spell leads to a tragic fall: abruptly, the master craftsman becomes a quadraplegic, struggling to redefine himself as a husband, a father, and an artist.

Meanwhile, the Boston Children's Museum has commissioned a three-story, high-profile 
climber––a project in which Tom was fully submerged prior to his accident. The art must go on, and Tom's son Spencer––a professional architect––accepts his "filial duty" to act as his father's hands. As similar and as devoted to one another as the pair may be, their strange new partnership is anything but simple. Spencer feels railroaded. Tom feels marginalized. Both are aching under the stress of completing an enormous project against a startling set of odds.

Local residents will no doubt enjoy the unfolding "how-to" process of building this familiar and magnificently impressive Boston piece. But director Laura Longsworth's feature also brings new perspective to the idea of mind over matter: the Luckeys must first tame the former if they want to rule the latter. The final, stunning sculpture speaks for itself of their results.

- Sandra L. Frey