STAR RATING: ***** Saturday Night **** Friday Night *** Friday Morning ** Sunday Night * Monday Morning
Harvey Price, the son of former glamour model and media personality Katie Price, was born with Prader Willi Syndrome, Autism and various other conditions that have affected his development. He has just turned eighteen, and Katie has her eyes set on placing him in a specialist care home that can cater for his complex emotional needs, but needs the approval of the local authority to fund this, having recently been declared bankrupt. She and Harvey find themselves in a desperate battle to avoid falling in to the care system, after hearing horror stories of those who have.
Her star has waned since her heyday in the late '90s/early'00s, but Katie Price has remained fixed in the public eye to this day, even if she is only relegated to cheap cable shows, chat show appearances and taking part in the odd reality show. I can remember reviewing that documentary series about her, when she was calling herself Jordan (in the early '00s!) and it really has felt like coming full circle, and shows the passage of time that Harvey, the little boy she gave birth to back then, has now reached adulthood.
Most people probably have a 'normal' idea of how their children will turn out like, as uncomfortable as that might be to admit, and so no one can have an expert idea of how to deal with raising a child with a disability, especially one with as many complex ones as Harvey's. It's clear how raising him has changed Katie as a person, and how Harvey is the centre of attention here, rather than in her 'Jordan' days when all the focus was on her.
Katie Price may have stayed in the limelight over the years as a 'love to hate' figure, a trashy tabloid icon for 'the great British public' to project their own frustration and failings on, but this tender documentary presents her in a new light, as an older, changed figure, adjusting as best as she can to the hand that fate dealt her and her son. ****
