This factually based movie is a moving tribute to a young man severely disfigured by a massive skull deformity who tries against all the odds to lead a normal life.
Roy "Rocky" Dennis (Eric Stoltz) was born with a very rare skull disease which meant that his skull grew at an extraordinarily fast rate, leaving him severely disfigured. Although his intelligence always recorded off the scale and was always an emotionally warm child he has always suffered the brunt of scornful, uneducated people in the world.
His mother, Rusty (Cher) is a no-nonsense woman who leads a wild lifestyle with the like of her biker friends and is often at odds with her tenderness and proteviness towards Rocky but is determined that Rocky, now in his teens, be given the same chances in life and happiness that everyone else takes for granted.
With this powerful and stubborn force in his coirner, along with all her biker friends, Rocky leads a relatively normal teenage life in his home town and ignores the cruelty of the few ignorant people that attempt to put him down.
His three aims in life are to get a girl to fall in love with him, to ride a motorbike around Europe, and to help his unconventional mother kick her drug habit and his mother aims to aid him in fulfilling all these wishes.
Rocky makes friends easily both at school and at summer camp. He also falls in love with Diana (Laura Dern), a blind girl who cannot see his deformed countenance and is entranced by the boy's kindness and compassion - but again, ignorance stands in the way of his happiness in the form of her seeing parents.
Superb performances all round make this a truely exceptional film, but be warned - you may need the tissues out.
Mask is a Film programme that first aired in 1985 and has been classified a 15 certificate.
