Doctor Christian Hansen, (or Chris as everyone knows him) began volunteering straight out of college, and did so for over forty years as the major social justice issues of the 20th century unfolded. Motivated by the belief that medicine is critical in breaking the cycle of poverty, Chris used his skills to make a difference and began life as a “pediatrician to the poor” by bringing healthcare to children on Native American reservations in Arizona and New Mexico before helping create America’s first healthcare center in rural Mississippi during the civil rights struggle. Later in life he fought the AIDS epidemic at home in New Jersey’s inner cities, while volunteering to tend children in war zones in Africa and the Middle East. What kept Chris going from one healthcare crisis to another was his passionately held belief that by making a difference to the life of one child, he is improving the health and prosperity of future generations – and this gave his life value and meaning.
Chris’s determination to work in difficult, dangerous and sometimes depressing conditions is all the more remarkable in light of the bi-polar condition from which he suffers and which is often aggravated by the suffering that he encounters in his work. Chris finds solace and ultimate escape in his love of model rockets. At family occasions he becomes the ‘Rocket Man’ as he fires off his collection of Estes parachute rockets with his children. He describes the experience as satisfying the “magical wistfulness” that accompanies “going up with the rocket, and out into space,” away from it all. Chris’s dedication to travelling around the world helping others is applauded by his family but presents challenges for them. Chris’s daughter, Amy tells us how “At times my mother was furious with my father for yet another move. Yet another place to go.” and his son Jona, interprets the rocket flying as a metaphor for his father’s lack of family involvement: “I’m going to raise you. I’m going to launch you and wherever you come down I may not be there for you.” When Amy thinks about her father’s volunteering, she questions her own feelings about giving, “It’s such a question: How much do you give to the world? And how much do you give to your family? … It’s a balance.”
A tall man, whose white beard, khaki shorts and safari jacket give him the air of a Quaker Indiana Jones, Chris doesn’t feel quite of this world. His fondness for spontaneous baudy hymn singing, and comic story-telling, only reinforces this impression. But his deep interest in others is as sincere as it is seductive and people are drawn to his warmth and energy.
Chris is a deeply respected figure in the healthcare profession and his employers in New Jersey allow him to continuing his voluntary work around the world. As the film opens, Chris is taking leave from his full time job as a pediatric child advocate for New Jersey Youth and Family Services, to volunteer his services in Haiti, a country with one of the highest child mortality rates in the world. Rocket man focuses on two trips Chris makes to the orphanage in Haiti in 2000 and 2001. Called RENMEN, (loosely based on the Creole word for love), the orphanage, is situated in a run down villa on the outskirts of the capital city, Port au Prince and Chris has pledged his support to it’s dynamic Haitian director, Florence Thybulle. For 5 years, in addition to providing his services as a pediatrician, Chris has fought to get extra funding from the Quakers in the United States to help improve the orphanage’s infrastructure and feed its young inhabitants. In the process he has inadvertently become RENMEN’s major donor, not a position for which he is ideally suited.
Florence is ambitious and has dreams of further expansion for the orphanage. Her list of improvements keeps growing and to try to satisfy these needs, Chris has let his emotions guide him and made promises to provide additional funding. Chris is an experienced doctor and public health expert but not a fundraiser, and his well-intentioned promises, although sincere, are not being realized, fueling Florence’s sense of disappointment and frustration and putting a strain on their relationship.
Chris ends his trip to the orphanage filled with concern for the well-being of the children and painfully aware of his shortcomings. He realizes his relationship with Florence is key to the project’s success and so, when he makes a 2nd visit to Haiti the next year, he brings with him a Quaker businessman, Rick Newbold, whom Chris hopes will put together a financial plan to attract sponsors and supply Florence’s needs. But days after arriving, both men are stranded at their hotel, with no word from Florence. Her non-appearance pushes Chris briefly towards a tipping point, and he reveals the flip side of his bi-polar condition – an anarchic playfulness – which gives way to concern as he recognizes that time is running out; unless he can meet with Florence and persuade her he really means business this time his 5-year involvement in the project will come to an end.