Photo by Courtesy Image

Jason Crigler’s recovery from a brain hemorrhage is documented in Life. Support. Music. The film will open tonight in Concord.

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For a film that has caught the fancy of critics around the globe, the plot is pretty far-fetched: A young musician is struck down mid-performance by a cerebral brain hemorrhage. His pregnant wife is told he'll spend the rest of his days in a vegetative state - if he even survives. Refusing to accept such a fate, Jason's friends and family keep vigil at his bedside around the clock for over a year and, against all odds, he makes a full recovery. His story becomes an inspiration to thousands, proving the power of hope and family. His divorced parents become best friends. Two years after the injury, Jason's mother pops in a CD of Indian music she played by his bedside while he was deep in coma - and Jason knows every song by heart.

Pretty far-fetched, yes, and entirely true. Life. Support. Music., which opens tonight at Red River Theatres, is the kind of doggedly optimistic movie that would be pure melodrama if it weren't pure fact.

"A lot of films will talk about an issue, but it's really up to you to take it home and ruminate and draw your own conclusions," said director Eric Metzgar, who will be on hand for a Q&A session after the film tonight, along with the film's subject, Jason Crigler. "But I think this film is plainly inspirational to everybody."

That's not to say it's all rainbows and flowers. The film, which features footage shot by hospital staff, tracks Crigler as he breaks through his vegetative state and begins, one excruciating step at a time, to rebuild his life.

"It's devastating footage," said Metzgar. "It would have been almost impossible to watch if he hadn't been out of the woods (by the time I saw it)."

Metzgar met Crigler several years ago at a venue in New York where Crigler was playing guitar. Metzgar invited him to join his band, Crigler agreed and the two struck up an easy friendship. As Metzgar's career branched off into filmmaking, he saw less of Crigler but stayed in touch and still performed with the band from time to time.

Then in 2004, Crigler, 34, suffered a brain hemorrhage while performing on stage. Metzgar took a train to the hospital the next day to find Crigler in a coma, a hole in his skull, his bed entwined in tubes.

A year and a half later, Crigler's family contacted Metzgar about the possibility of making a film documenting his remarkable recovery, starting with footage the hospital had shot as part of a training video.

Meeting with Crigler the next week, Metzgar was both amazed and dismayed. "He had sounded so good on the phone . . .then I saw him and realized how far he had to go," Metzgar said. "He had been in a hospital bed for so long, he had changed quite a bit physically. That was jarring . . . He was very slow, and I thought at first that his sense of humor had gone. Humor was one of the things that had defined him."

But as he watched the hospital footage and spent time with Crigler's network of family and friends, Metzgar saw that humor - and hope - were very much alive. "I was just floored," he said. "I just don't know if I'd ever seen a familial love that big."

For those 18 months in the hospital, Crigler had never been left by himself. His wife, sister, parents and his wife's family played music to him, read to him, did crossword puzzles across his chest and talked to him about the latest news and gossip.

"They would be beside a patient in another bed who had a half-hour visit a day," Metzgar recalled. They never stopped . . . even if it seemed he wasn't taking it in."

As the CD incident later proved, Crigler was absorbing the constant flood of experiences. And as Metzgar began working on the film, there was no doubt in his mind that it had helped him emerge from the darkness. Over the course of the film, Crigler begins bonding with his daughter, cracking jokes, taking walks, playing his guitar again. By the film's end, he is nearly his old self. (And that's not the end: Crigler has begun playing with his band again and composing scores for commercials and films; and just a couple of weeks ago he got his driver's license.) (next page »)