HOW I ROLL: Hits the Gas on Heart
Part of what shapes our character and perspective on life is not just the challenges we endure, but how we receive and respond to them. We can sulk, licking our wounds and feeling sorry for ourselves. Or we can take a harder, yet more rewarding path. We can find the joy in our lives, refusing to let a single (or even multiple) setbacks define us as we take part in the best revenge: living as well as we can. In How I Roll, we hear the compelling story of Robin Cohen, along with her family and how their struggles haven’t stopped them from living and loving.
FULL FORCE IN THE FEELS
“I don’t think it’s in my genetic makeup to be a victim.”
The film follows Robin as we learn about her life as a person diagnosed with Multiple sclerosis. In addition to intimate interviews, we’re privy to scenes as she moves around town, exercising and physical therapy, and visiting her family. What’s notable about How I Roll is that it’s not a typical MS documentary. Rather than focusing on the diagnosis itself, it’s about Robin and the happy life she lives around it. Foregoing medicine, she instead chooses sports and exercise to alleviate the stresses of her condition. She also speaks lovingly about her late husband Mitch, who battled with cancer, and we’re treated to home-video footage of him throughout the years as well.
But this film isn’t just about how she rolls; it’s also about her mother, Ellis Hyman. She’s first introduced to us smiling and singing before telling the story of the tragic night her husband was killed and she was shot five times. Miraculously, she survived with the bullets having missed her heart and major arteries. Her advice to us? She quotes Fred and Ginger in Swing Time, saying “pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and start all over again.”
CONCLUSION
With How I Roll, creative duo BriGuel pack so much heart into a thirteen-minute film. This is a documentary not just for those familiar with the difficulties of MS, but those who wish to see how the human heart can endure and continue to thrive. Just as Robin is an inspiration to us as viewers, she is an inspiration to her trainers and others in her life who have seen her power through each and every day. As she says at the beginning of the film, “You have to have a smile on your face, love in your heart, and the will to just power forward.” Perhaps we might all be moved to do the same.
How I Roll had its West Coast premiere at Dances With Films June 26th, 2024.
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