2022’s Miracle at Manchester tells the story of a high school community that is brought together by one potential tragedy.

Brycen Newman (Kory Getman) is a high school student and an all-around athlete, a star on both the baseball and the football teams.  But when he faints during baseball practice and also suffers a sudden nosebleed in the middle of class, his father (played by director Eddie McClintock) rushes Brycen to the hospital.  He’s told that there’s nothing wrong with Brycen, beyond the typical teenage growing pain.  Take a Tylenol and don’t worry about it, he’s told.  That night, Brycen is woken up by a blinding headache.  Another trip to the hospital reveals that Brycen has got a tumor in his brain.  Brycen is continually given hope, just to have it snatched away.  At first, he’s told that the tumor has been removed.  But then the tumor comes back.  Brycen goes through chemotherapy and even prepares to be sent to Florida so that he can take part in an experimental treatment.  No one has much faith that Brycen is going to survive but Brycen’s fellow students rally around him.  The football teams shaves their head in honor of Brycen.  A priest leads a prayer ceremony in the stands.  Journalist Miles Himmel (Nick Avila) follows Brycen’s story and reports all the details, even though he firmly does not believe in miracles.  (He even snaps at his young daughter when he hears her talking about a miracle.)

While this is going on, a local mechanic named Ed Hanson (a nice performance from Daniel Roebuck) is fixing cars and, for veterans, charging on a dollar.  His wife, who happens to be a nurse at the hospital, tells Ed that he need to get more rest and he needs to come up with a better financial plan than only charging people a dollar for thousands of dollars worth of work.  Ed replies that he has no choice.  He does it for the veterans and the needy.  Good for Ed.  We need more people like Ed in the world.

Miracle at Manchester is the type of low-budget, overly earnest filmmaking that typically brings out my cynical side but I have to admit that I actually teared up a bit while watching this film.  Some of that is for strictly personal reasons.  I lost my mom to cancer in 2008.  Last year, I lost my Dad to Parkinson’s.  Right now, I’m still  in  a state where even seeing a hospital room in a film will trigger my tears.  But beyond that, it was a heartfelt story and also one that was (perhaps loosely, I don’t know) based on a true story.  The film ended with the footage of the actual Brycen.  It got to me.

Speaking of my father, after he died, I was organizing his estate and I was surprised to discover that he used to regularly give money to Make-A-Wish.  Two representatives of Make-A-Wish appear in this film.  Again, I can be cynical when it comes to various charities but Make-A-Wish seems like a good group of people.  I’m proud of my Dad for supporting them.