'The Ride Ahead': Hot Docs Review

Dirs: Samuel Habib, Dan Habib. US. 2024. 97mins

Like others living with a disability, Samuel Habib has grown tired of watching simplistic narratives told about his community by non-disabled artists. As one of the interview subjects of his advocacy documentary The Ride Ahead puts it, ”We only get to have three stories: ‘Help me, I’m disabled. Cure me. Kill me.”  So Habib, with the assistance of his filmmaker father Dan, tells his own tale, presenting a moving but candid look at a young man in his early 20s with cerebral palsy, epilepsy and a swallowing disorder who wants to embrace the entirety of adulthood — including finding love.

Samuel attaches cameras to his wheelchair, providing viewers with an insightful POV of his daily existence

The Ride Ahead is an expansion of the Habibs’ Emmy-winning short film of 2022 My Disability Roadmap, which, like this full-length documentary, screened at Hot Docs. There have been several notable recent documentaries by and about disabled individuals, including I Didn’t See You There, Is There Anybody Out There? and the Oscar-nominated Crip Camp and, joining those ranks as a watchable crowd-pleaser, The Ride Ahead should see more festival play.

Samuel Habib has difficulty speaking, but with the assistance of an electronic communication device attached to his wheelchair he has an easier time expressing himself. Even so, everyday activities are hard — including dressing himself or getting into bed — and, as he prepares to graduate from high school, he worries about socialising and finding a girlfriend in college. (Never mind that, according to onscreen statistics, an alarmingly low number of disabled Americans are able to complete a university education because of ableist obstacles.) Looking for mentors who can guide him on the path to adulthood, Samuel interviews disabled performers, scholars and civil rights leaders, hearing their stories about battling discrimination and ignorance. 

Listed as co-directors, Samuel and Dan seek to educate the non-disabled while inspiring the disabled, and the documentary succeeds on both fronts. It can be sobering (and embarrassing) to watch how even the most well-intentioned people treat Samuel. During the 2020 US presidential campaign, he meets then-nominee Joe Biden to ask about disability education, and the future president talks to him in a patronisingly comforting way, even stroking his cheek. The Ride Ahead does not shy away from showing Samuel’s anger at such interactions, which leave him feeling demeaned and dehumanised.

Thankfully, he finds others who can relate: Tony-winning actor and wheelchair-user Ali Stroker, disability rights advocate Judy Heumann (who died in March) and others share their experiences of being insulted by non-disabled individuals who consider themselves ‘normal’ and marginalise those who do not tick that box. Samuel also candidly discusses with his interview subjects his anxieties around sex, including his uncertainty regarding whether he should hire a sex surrogate. Through these interactions, The Ride Ahead lays bare just how his coming-of-age is made even more challenging by his disability, and it is touching how honest and supportive these disabled adults are with their advice. 

As part of his quest to make his disabled experience more visible, Samuel attaches cameras to his wheelchair, providing viewers with an insightful POV of his daily existence. Audiences quickly became aware of how crucial his wheelchair is, and just how fragile that mode of transportation can be in a society that often does not show it the proper care. One especially revealing moment involves Samuel and Dan going on a flight — no matter how much his dad stresses to the airline staff that they not damage Samuel’s wheelchair, it ends up broken. (Samuel and his father’s irritated reaction suggests this is far from the first time this has happened.)

The Ride Ahead gets its urgent, breezy tone from Samuel who, speaking through his electronic voice, offers us a running commentary on his evolving mindset — from being excited to go off to college to worrying that he will not fit in. We see his loving family (beyond Dan, Samuel has an older brother and mother) and recognise that he has been blessed with a secure safety net. (The documentary alludes to the distressing amount of disabled people who fall into homelessness, largely because they have no one to help them navigate the world.)

But Samuel wants to do more than survive, he wants to thrive — and one of the picture’s unspoken themes is that the non-disabled have not done enough to make life better for the disabled around them. He insists that he does not want pity, just respect. The Ride Ahead is his heartfelt attempt to amplify that message.