Based on a true story, Ordinary Angels follows Sharon Steves, a determined yet struggling hairdresser in rural Kentucky in the early 1990s. Her life takes a meaningful turn when she crosses paths with Ed Schmitt, a widowed father striving to support his two daughters. When Ed’s youngest daughter urgently needs a liver transplant, Sharon dedicates herself to assisting the family.
In this article, I explain what happens in the film and whether Sharon is able to save young Michell’s life. The article contains spoilers.
Ordinary Angels (2024) Plot Summary & Movie Summary:
Sharon Stevens (Hilary Swank) is a hairdresser and an alcoholic whose friend, Rose (Tamara Jones), pushes her to an AA meeting after realizing Sharon is struggling. Sharon finds the meeting uninteresting and returns to buying more beer cans. It’s then that she discovers a newspaper article about a 4-year-old girl fighting for her life due to a liver disease after recently losing her mother.
Something inside her leads Sharon to attend the funeral service, where she meets Ed Schmitt (Alan Ritchson) and his two daughters, Michell (Emily Mitchell) and Ashley (Skywalker Hughes). Ed finds the random meeting with Sharon odd, and she leaves them be after expressing her condolences to the family. Back at the salon, Sharon suggests organizing a fundraising campaign with Rose, mentioning that she will use the money to help cover the young girl’s medical bills. Rose, who initially thinks Sharon has lost it, ends up helping, and the two women raise about $3000 by offering haircuts.
Back at Ed’s place, he is struggling both financially and emotionally, as Michell is constantly in and out of the hospital. Just when he starts to lose hope, Sharon comes as a blessing to their doorstep, offering the money to them. Ed is reluctant, but his mother, Barbara (Nancy Travis), kindly accepts the money and invites Sharon in for a quick dinner.
At the dinner table, Sharon notices unpaid bills piled up from various places. The next day, she poses as an accountant and makes a phone call to find out about Ed’s unpaid dues. But she learns that he is in debt of about $43,000. She then goes to Ed, and before he realizes anything, Sharon has already laid out all his bills and started segregating them based on urgency level.
She then tells Ed that besides being a hairdresser and business owner, she is also an accountant and does a bloody good job at it. She starts inquiring about his medical insurance and financial status, but Ed is helpless in that matter. Since he speaks less, Sharon takes it upon herself to figure out how to pay off the debt and bring in more money for Michell’s liver transplant.
Meanwhile, we also get a backstory as to why Sharon resorted to drinking. It turns out that she has an estranged relationship with her son, who would not return any of her messages. Feeling remorse for not being able to connect with her child, she starts drinking. On the other hand, Ed notices that he cannot rely on Sharon’s constant financial aid and decides to pitch himself to the local construction company. However, Sharon finds his pitch very weak and further helps him when he is not able to present himself to the owner of the company. Slowly, with Sharon’s presence by his side, Ed starts to make a decent income from the extra projects he secured when the storm hits the town really badly. This obviously doesn’t mean that his financial woes go away, but Sharon reminds him that he has more bills to clear.
How does Sharon help raise funds for Michell?
A still from Ordinary Angels (2024)In the meantime, Sharon learns that she could take the fundraising campaign to the corporate level, and we see her designing presentations and pamphlets to pitch to major companies. We can see Sharon tirelessly, single-handedly, calling and visiting these offices, hoping some of them would help, and they eventually do. When Barbara accidentally fractures her leg, Sharon comes to help her and the girls, but Ed finds it too overwhelming, especially when he sees her dead wife’s cosmetics being used, leading him to have an emotional outburst.
Next, we see Sharon meeting her son Derek (Dempsey Bryk) at a bar where he works. Derek is not pleased with his mother’s unannounced visit, especially since he grew up seeing her drinking and throwing away precious moments. After getting riled up by her son, we see Sharon drinking after attempting to quit it previously. On the other hand, Michell’s health deteriorates, leading her to another hospital night, bringing Sharon into the picture again. When Sharon prompts Ed to spend the day with the girls, as he has been working day and night to make money, the two end up opening up a little about themselves and how they are somehow two peas in the same pod.
Another instance shows us Sharon chugging out of a bottle when her son doesn’t respond to her birthday wishes. The following day, she visits Ed with the idea of selling his house, which would get him handsome cash, and also comes up with a decent property deal that would be best for the Schmitt family. Ed gets furious and reminds Sharon that he will not leave the last thing that his wife left for their daughters – memories. This leads Sharon to speak to the hospital management as she pushes them to erase unpaid dues (the hospital charged Ed hefty fees for his wife’s post-death services). To Ed’s luck, Sharon, yet again, brings happy news of cleared bills, leading the man to break down secretly.
When Ed finishes up his work at night, we see Sharon spending time with the girls, and suddenly, Michell starts to puke blood. She is rushed into the hospital again, and after observation, the doctor tells Ed that she has been moved up on the transplant list. However, she has very little time, and Ed must start making arrangements in case they find a donor. Ed doesn’t understand how he can arrange things in advance, but the doctor hints at getting a private plane on standby in case there is an emergency.
While Ed starts to panic, Sharon once again blurts, ‘We will figure it out.’ And so she does after contacting several corporate moguls and finally lands on five charter plane offers. She goes ahead and shares the news with Barbara and Ed. However, Ed finally wants Sharon to stop doing things for them. Meanwhile, Rose and Sharon get into a disagreement when her friend accuses Sharon of drinking again and leaving the business on Rose’s shoulders.
Ordinary Angels (2024) Movie Ending Explained:
While watching the news, Sharon gets another idea to help the Schmitt. She contacts the local news channel to cover Michell’s story. Ed gets even more furious about this stunt and calls out Sharon for doing all this for herself more than for Michell. Later in the night, when Ed returns home, he finds Ashley panicking over Sharon’s not waking up. It turns out that Sharon had been drinking all night. Ed wakes Sharon up and calls for a cab, requesting that she not be around his girls. However, Sharon is apologetic as we see her sharing that her son has cut off ties with her, and she misses him a lot. She also acknowledges that in spite of her best efforts, she has turned into her mother.
Is Sharon able to save Michell’s life?
The following day, Rose takes Sharon to an AA meeting when she comes out to her for help. Time passes by, and soon, the Schmitt family experiences another emergency when Ed receives a call from the doctor that Michell has found a donor. However, Michell has to be in the hospital within 6 hours; otherwise, she will lose out on the possibility of the transplant to another donor.
Ed calls up Sharon, stating that she tries to arrange for whatever help she can provide him, like finding the right roads, talking to the runway authorities, etc. However, due to snow blockage throughout the city, Ed gets stuck, and just when he is about to give up by calling the hospital that he won’t be able to make it, Rose’s cousins are able to find him. On the other hand, Sharon arranges for a helicopter
On the other hand, Sharon arranges for a helicopter with the help of the local news. After the news channel gets a call from an experienced pilot, everyone from the town comes together to clear the snow by the town’s church so that the helicopter is able to land safely.
Another still from Ordinary Angels (2024)The ending of Ordinary Angels also shows Sharon reconciling with her son Derek when he joins everyone in clearing the snow. Just before leaving for the hospital where the transplant will take place, Ed finally thanks Sharon for being a ‘miracle’ in their life. The end sequence shows Michell getting a successful transplant, and as the credits roll, we see real-life pictures and footage of Michell being taken to the hospital, eventually leading to a happy life.
Is ‘Ordinary Angels’ based on a true story?
A major chunk of what happens in the 2024 film Ordinary Angels is inspired by a true story from Louisville, Kentucky, in the early 1990s.
Ed Schmitt, a widower raising two daughters, Michelle and Ashley, faced a challenging situation when both girls needed liver transplants due to a congenital liver disease. Ashley received her transplant in 1991, but Michelle, then three years old, was still waiting while the family struggled with medical debts.
Sharon Stevens Evans, a local hairdresser, learned about the family’s plight and took action. She organized fundraising efforts to assist them, even arranging for Michelle to be transported by private plane to a children’s hospital in Omaha, Nebraska, where she could receive her transplant when a donor’s liver became available.
In January 1994, amidst a historic snowstorm that paralyzed Louisville, Michelle received news that a donor’s liver was ready. With roads closed and the airport inaccessible, time was of the essence. Michelle’s family, along with community members including Sharon and Michelle’s grandmother, Barbara Schmitt, worked frantically to secure a helicopter to transport Michelle to the airport.
Sharon mobilized the community through radio stations, and volunteers gathered at Southeast Christian Church to clear a landing space for the helicopter. Despite the daunting conditions, they succeeded, enabling Michelle to reach Omaha in time for the transplant.
Michelle’s successful journey to Omaha and subsequent transplant exemplify the extraordinary efforts of ordinary people coming together in a time of crisis.
Did Michelle survive in real life?
While the film shows the portion of Mitchell’s life that raised hope in everyone, Michelle Schmitt Cobble passed away at 30 years old in 2021 due to a stomach aneurysm.
Ashley Schmitt shared that Michelle graduated from Louisville’s Spalding University and worked in the medical field with children, even alongside some of the pediatricians they had seen over the years. Ashley mentioned Michelle’s enjoyment of helping others and giving back to the community.
Cobble is survived by her husband, father, and older sister. Reflecting on their lives, Ashley expressed gratitude for reaching milestones like getting their driver’s licenses and attending prom, experiences they hadn’t dared to dream of due to their health challenges.
