Row of Life Review – Debut Filmmaker Honors Champion Paralympian, Excellent

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Category: Indies, Docs, Foreign Film

Published on Thursday, 12 June 2025 09:39

Written by Janet Walker

Row of Life, Vacationland Films, presents the story of renowned ocean rower, Marine Corps veteran, three-time Paralympian, and holder of 14 Guinness World Records Angela Madsen as she attempts a row from LA to Hawaii.

The documentary opens with a long shot, over a tropical location, lush palm trees, white sandy beaches, and a close up, shark-teeth painted on the hull, and large letters spelling Row of Life painted in red against the blue bottom. A pan of the inside shows a bumper sticker, "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History."  

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We understand, at least we think, we are beginning to see the outline of a person with courage, determination, resolute without fear. And her story, of the circumstances that birthed this new life, are harsh. Angela served this nation, as a Marine, she was all-in, a trait she carried over into her next life, and an avid sportsperson she joined the Marine Corps women's basketball team.

During a game she jumped up for the ball, tripped, fell, landed hard, and another player landed on full-weight, feet first on the base of her spine. She had serious injuries. The VA surgeons egregiously botched the surgery, it was as if an imposter surgeon had operated on her, and she was left to deal with the destruction of medical ineptness. The surgeon, in an attempt to repair her back injury, made a series of critical errors and in the end she was left paralyzed, without the full use of her legs.

Her life snowballed into an unknown and unforeseen hell, the recovery time should have included a hospital stay of two weeks, and it ended up being three months. Her extended recovery cost her employment, she arrived home, in a wheelchair, to an eviction notice, and was given 24 hours to relocate her possessions, and process the chair, her new normal, the despair and the loss. As she explains she tried couch surfacing, but the chair, and her new life of disability made those situations impossible. And Angela Madsen, former U.S. Marine, became part of the San Diego homeless population.

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The story is jarring. She doesn't explain how she transitioned back into housing. She explains she had always liked the water and was always athletic so, rowing seemed to be a natural fit in the new normal. And she was determined.

We see footage of Angela at her height, strong, in shape, prepared for the physical demands of the sport, long distance ocean crossing rowing, is a two hour on, two hour off challenge, 24 hours a day, and sleeping erratically, in the two hour breaks, is not healthy. And for elite athletes, the thrill of the victory of cementing in the annals of time this achievement is more important. And she did, not only did she cross one ocean, and we hear her explain her many victories in single person rowing across large bodies of water. She became a new person after her injury as she was a determined not to allow the disability to delete her. She became amplified with determination. Soon, she was became competing in the Paralympian, winning award after award. She met her life partner, Debra.

She had confidence. Confidence in her ability and confidence in herself. The only body of water she had been unable to conquer was the row from San Diego to Hawaii. We see in 2013 she tried but the ocean's fury, her nemesis, forced her to call it and she had to be airlifted due to a storm.

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And when we meet her seven years later, in 2020 as she prepares for another attempt, life had taken its toll on her, and even as an avid sportsman without the use of her legs, it was obvious she had lost her athletic edge.

A documentary filmmaker, Soraya Simi came on board to tell Angela's story, and so the row was on, even as her partner, Debra, was not keen on her attempting this crossing. They rigged the boat so she could record her days, and she had all the equipment to make sea to land calls and stay in communication with her land team.

The winds were not with her from the beginning. As the row begins, she seems upbeat, content in her environment, she is determined. San Diego KBAK Chief Meteorologist Miles Muzio and the local KBAK weather team kept viewers updated and explained that as the winds continued to push her south toward the isle of Guadalupe, she would be able to catch the trade winds to propel her west. Her determination blinded her to the "signs."

Even without considering her other co-morbidities, the "gods" were placing insurmountable obstacles in her path, and instead of heeding the suggestions of her team, she kept rowing, and after delays from the southerly winds she began to correct her course. Her land team notified her of a cyclone on the horizon, heading her way, and still she decided to row on, "to rage," as the poet Dylan Thomas said, "against the dying of the light."

For those who know the end of the story, her team managed to have the coast guard find her and return her to San Diego. The vessel, the Row Of Life, shark toothed champion, was forever lost or destroy, we believed, smashed into tiny bits from raging cyclone force winds.

One year later, in some distant atoll in the Marshall Islands, a rowboat drifted to shore.

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Country: U.S.

Language: English.

Runtime: 82 minutes.

Director: Soraya Simi.

Producer: Nicholas Weissman, Jaime Chew.

Executive Producers: Sue Bird, Tina Tozzi, Jess Robertson, Loren Hammonds, Kyle Hentschel, Dave O'Connor, Amanda Alpert Muscat, Jack Pearkes.

Featuring: Angela Madsen, Debra Madsen, Miles Muzio.


Janet Walker is the publisher, founder, and sole owner of Haute-Lifestyle.com. A graduate of New York University, she has been covering international news through the Beltway Insider, a weekly review of the nation's top stories, for more than a decade.  A general beat writer/reporter and entertainment/film critic, she is also an accomplished news/investigative news/crime reporter and submitted for Pulitzer Prize consideration "Cops Conspire to Deep Six Sex Assaults" in the Breaking News Category and was persuaded to withdraw the submission. Ms. Walker has completed five screenplays, "The Six Sides of Truth," "The Assassins of Fifth Avenue," "The Wednesday Killer," "The Manhattan Project," and the sci-fi thriller "Project 13: The Last Day." She is completing the non-fiction narrative, "Unholy Alliances: A True Crime Story," which is expected to be released in early 2025. She is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, the National Writers Union, and a former member of the International Federation of Journalists.