A documentary not about illness, but about life

If it were up to us to choose the fates of the performers we care about, millions of people would want to wish Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's away

- By Stephanie Zacharek

Few actors of the 1980s and '90s gave us as much pleasure: On TV's Family Ties, his characterization of teenage conservative Alex P. Keaton was so artful that even die-hard liberals could get a kick out of it. In 1985, as the charmingly incredulous Marty McFly, he traveled back in time to make a match between his own parents. And in the sharp '90s-era sitcom Spin City, he played peripatetic New York City deputy mayor Mike Flaherty, doing his best to avert municipal crises despite his bumbling staff. Fox's nervous energy was a kind of radiance, an animating force that audiences warmed to. After he was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease in 1991, at age 29, he hid his condition for as long as he could. When he finally revealed his illness to the world, it seemed cosmically unfair that such a likable performer, so gifted at physical comedy in particular, should have to suffer this way.