So Much So Fast

Stephen Heywood is diagnosed with a grave illness at twenty nine. The illness is ALS, and it paralyses the muscles by degrees. There is no known cure for it. Stephen goes on building his life all the same. He marries and has a son. He rebuilds two houses from top to bottom. With his wife Wendy he fills the days as fully as they can. The documentary follows five years of this family. Meanwhile his brother Jamie sets to work. The drug companies take no interest in the disease, because there is not enough profit in it. Jamie founds his own research organisation. His aim is to find a treatment in time for his brother. The work turns into a race. The film shows the course of the illness and that race together. What it means to race against time is the subject of the account. The eighty seven minute documentary moves through that stretch of years. It is an American production Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan finished in 2006.