Loving Walter

Ian McKellen's meticulous performance in this relentless downer of a social drama is more admirable than emotionally involving. When her son was born spastic, Walter's mother (Barbara Jefford) considered murdering him, but instead devoted herself to training him to control his wayward body until, as an adult, Walter (Ian McKellen) is capable of holding a janitorial job. As long as Walter — whom his mother describes as "a great big mistake of a man" — lives with his long-suffering, emotionally distant parents he's able to cope with the outside world. But Walter loses first his father and, later, his mother, and fails to report her death to the authorities. T...