CHRIS COOPER - COOPER CHALLENGES U.S. DOCTORS AND EDUCATORS WITH HARD-HITTING NEW FILM

Oscar winner CHRIS COOPER hopes his new movie HURRICANE MARY gives belief to all parents of disabled kids - because it shows that doctors don't always know best. Written by the Adaptation star's wife Marianne Leone and based on the real-life battle of a mother who refused to listen to doctors, Cooper feels the film could be the feel-good movie of the year. And it's a personal triumph for the actor and his wife. Their son, Jesse, died of causes related to his cerebral palsy battle in 2005. The twins in Leone's movie battle the disease. Cooper says, "We met Mary (Somosa) through our mutual paediatrician and her twin daughters had varying degrees of cerebral palsy, as did my son (Jesse). "The film deals with the medical system, who we had to prove wrong. Early on we were told, 'Your son's cortically blind. Are you thinking about having another child?' That suggested, 'Get one that works' to me. "It also deals with an educational system which doesn't want to deal with children with disabilities... There are all sorts of tricks and I want to expose what the state of New York did to Mary Somosa and her family." The story has a very happy ending - Somosa's disabled daughters are set to graduate from Georgetown University. Cooper beams, "One of them is going to be a disabilities lawyer now. They are bilingual, with IQs of 130. "If Mary Somosa and my wife had taken to heart what the medical establishment thought was gonna be the outturn of these children then their potential would've been destroyed. "How many children live in a very aware mind trapped in a body, and are just dying to express themselves and they've been given this prediction that this child is of virtually no worth so why invest anything in it."