Fun
Frisky
Nostalgic
Intense
Adventurous
Choked Up
Curious
Romantic
Weird
As Dr. Ben Carson surges in the Republican primary race, you might be asking yourself, “Did he really try to stab his friend as a child?” or “Is it true he almost hit his mother with a hammer?” or “Is there a way I can see all these stories about Ben Carson brought to life in a maudlin made-for-TV movie?”
We at Decider don’t know what the deal is with that belt buckle knife story or the yarn about Carson’s mom and the hammer, but we do know that TNT’s Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story is available to stream on Netflix.
The film has come under fire recently because it dramatizes several key stories from Carson’s biography that some reporters are now questioning, but it’s worth checking out if you want to fully understand the pull that Carson has over many people in the Republican party. Even though Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story is a schmaltzy made-for-cable-tv biopic that you know you can’t take too seriously, it’s also incredibly deft at tugging at your heartstrings. It’s well-made and features Academy Award winner Cuba Gooding Jr. as Ben Carson.
The film tells Carson’s now-contested backstory within a heart-wrenching framing device. It starts and ends in 1987, when Carson was tasked with surgically separating two German twins conjoined at the head. Back then, all that people could hope for is that one infant would survive the procedure and Carson must puzzle out a way to save both babies. It’s very emotionally affecting. No one wants to see a cute baby die! And it also proves that Carson not only would not abort baby Hitler, but he has a history of saving German babies from the gaping maw of death.
