Tag Archives: disabilities in film

The Witness

Bill Genovese was 16 years old when his big sister Kitty was stabbed to death in Queens, New York. Her 1964 murder shocked and scared the nation as news got out that 38 of Kitty’s neighbors watched and did nothing to intervene as the 28 year-old screamed for help and fought for her life.

It’s actually a horrifying image that has always stuck with me ever since I first read about it in Social Psych. How could 38 people watch from their apartment windows as their neighbor was in such immediate danger? This question inspired a new subfield of social psych research and was one of the main reasons why I continued to study (and pursue a career in) psychology. It inspired Bill Genovese to enlist in the Marines when the Vietnam War began because he vowed to never be the guy standing by and doing nothing. And I just found out that it’s a fucking lie.

Obviously and tragically, some of what I learned about Kitty Genovese in college was true. Yes, she was brutally murdered by a stranger outside her building as she screamed for help. Yes, police later interviewed 38 witnesses to the attack. But the claims that 38 people knew what was going on and (shockingly) even that no one tried to help her are erroneous products of some sensationalist and irresponsible journalism published in the New York Times.

The Witness follows Bill Genovese over a ten-year period as he attempts to separate fact from urban myth in the death of his sister. For forty years, the Genovese family believed the same fiction that I did. What that must have been like, to not only lose a daughter and sister to such a brutal attack but to believe that her own neighbors stood by and did nothing, I can only imagine. For a long time, the subject of Kitty’s death (even her life) was too painful for them to even talk about. Until one day Bill can’t take the silence anymore and starts looking for answers.

Sure, the Genovese case received national attention which may have brought about some real positive changes. And, no, that may not have happened had the story been reported as it actually happened. But The Witness makes a fairly strong case that the truth- in journalism as well as in healing from personal trauma- is always important. At some point while watching this documentary, you’ll probably start to wonder if Bill’s obsession with finding the truth is getting a little unhealthy. But by digging deeper into the details of his sister’s life and death, he’ll come to feel closer to her than ever and he honours her memory by reminding all who see it that Kitty was so much more than the last 30 minutes of her life.

Finding Dory

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As soon as you hear the voices of Ellen DeGeneres (as Dory) and Albert Brooks (as Nemo’s neurotic dad, Marlin), you realize how much you’ve missed these two. It’s been 13 long years since the original was in theatres but only a single year has elapsed in the ocean where they make their home.
Writer\co-director Andrew Stanton had no desire to revisit Nemo’s world until he rewatched it in 3D and realized how many unanswered questions peppered Dory’s storyline. So good news, folks: those burning questions that have been keeping you awake the last dozen years finally get their time in sea – Why does Dory speak whale? How did she learn to read? And does her disability make for a lonely life?

Dory convinces Nemo and Marlin to embark on yet another oceanwide journey, this time to find her absent family. Eugene Levy and Diane Keaton voice her parents in various flashbacks (Dory was a SUPER cute young guppie!), but with a spotty memory and so much time gone by, is it even possible to find them? How to put this delicately…just what is the life expectancy of even a vegetarian, non-smoking, yoga-adhering blue tang?

The magic of Finding Nemo is safely recaptured in Finding Dory; the story makes room for both old friends and new. Hank, the cranky octopus (or technically a septapus, if you bother to count) is a definite break-out star, voiced by Ed O’Neill. He helps Dory navigate hank-octopus-finding-dory the exhibits of an aquarium where she believes her parents live. Ty Burrell, who plays Ed’s son-in-law on Modern Family, voices a beluga whale with dubious echolocation abilities but a willingness to play “guide whale” for his visually impaired friend. In fact, the nice thing about this new world presented in Finding Dory is that the marine rescue centre in question rehabs sick fish – everyone’s got some sort of disability but they’ve got plenty of ability too, even Dory. Or especially Dory. My favourite new character is a bird named Becky, who, okay, maybe has some mental health issues, maybe is a little intellectually challenged, maybe isn’t as finely feathered as some, but MY GOD. The minute she was introduced I had a mini meltdown, wracked with laughter.

Finding Dory can’t surprise you in quite the same way the first one did, but it makes up for it in laughs and heart. Last week on our podcast, Matt hoped that the sequel would make him cry as the first one did. The verdict’s not in on his tear ducts, but mine were a leaky mess.

A memory-challenged fish sets out to find her blue family and along the way remembers that she already has an orange one. I’ve seen a lot of sequels lately that stink like 13 year old fish, but Finding Dory is a sweet and satisfying cuddle party with old friends, serving up something fresh that everyone will enjoy.

Hello, My Name is Frank

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Laura’s Mom just died and before her death, she promised her mother that she’d definitely DEFINITELY not miss the road trip with her friends the summer before college. There’s just one little hitch: Frank.

Laura’s mother was Frank’s caregiver. Frank has Tourette’s. Some might say severe Tourette’s, both physical and verbal. He’s also reclusive and withdrawn in his spare time. As you 563769162_640 can imagine, replacing Frank’s caregiver proves to be a Challenge with a capital C. Super awkward solution: bring foul-mouthed, 59 year old Frank on a road trip with a trio of recent high school grads. It’s the perfect plan to allow Laura to continue to suppress her grief, undermine Frank’s independence, and completely ruin what was supposed to be a fun and carefree vacation. Everyone’s thrilled.

Garrett M. Brown is Frank, and he manages to do that rare thing where he reflects the humour in the situation without disrespecting the disease or the person who has it. Frank is a very real person and we constantly see beyond his disease until we eventually don’t see it at all.

The movie has the support of the Tourette Association of America who stated “We are proud to support projects such as Hello, My Name Is Frank. This film portrays Frank as an authentic, relatable character and helps the audience see the human being behind the Tourette.” That’s a pretty important endorsement but you and I both know that any movie, no matter how noble, must also be watchable. Does this one pass the test? This Asshole says yes. It’s an indie film with frankshot-gilrs-grave-helmet800 blockbuster-caliber acting. Brown deserves props but the young actresses (Rachel DiPillo, Hayley Kiyoko, Mary Kate Wiles) surprisingly don’t suck. Does that sound cynical? Well, I am. So when I come across fresh talent that actually IS talent, I’m chuffed. First-time feature director Dale Peterson is a little heavy-handed at times but otherwise keeps the actors’ chemistry in focus and lets the movie do its thing. And for a little icing on this cupcake of a film: the soundtrack is solid. Really solid.

Autism in Love

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Maybe I’m a little hungry, but to me, finding a good movie on Netflix is like finding the juicy peach hearts among all the other loser gummies. Fucking jackpot!

Autism In Love is, you guessed it, a documentary about people in love or looking for love, who also happen to be autistic (to varying degrees). Director Matt Fuller does an impressive job of teasing out a narrative that rarely gets seen in mainstream media: they’re on the spectrum, but they have needs and desires too.

We’ve tended to categorize autistic people as being emotionless, but that’s not true at all. They struggle to recognize and express feelings, but they’re there, and the more I learn about autism, the more I see similarities instead of differences. Autism in Love follows 4 individuals who I have to thank for their openness and bravery. It’s not easy for any of us to expose our vulnerabilities, and I can only hope they know how moved their audience has been.

autism-in-love-clip3-mezzanine Lenny is a young man in his 20s who, not unlike his peers, is struggling to find himself. He’d like to find a girlfriend, preferably a very independent one, but he feels strongly that they’re all out of his league. There’s anguish here. Lenny will break your goddamned heart. Lenny is a smart guy in his way, and he’s aware. He’s aware of how much his differences have set him apart and all he wants is to be “normal.”

Stephen is a middle-aged gentleman who’s been married for several years to a 1655622 woman with her own disabilities. Though not a classic love story, you can see how much love and care there is between them. His wife knows how to get him talking, and how to recognize his affection. It’s incredibly endearing.

Lindsey & Dave are a young couple who are high-functioning professionals navigating a romantic relationship that’s just a little bit harder when both partners are autistic. But when you watch them together, 5aa879377a107381d73f413b652bff71 it’s embarrassing, but you start to think that they’ve got it right, because in recognizing their weaknesses, they’re actually working harder at overcoming them than a lot of the rest of us. Their communication is open and honest, even if it’s a bit of a trial. Everyone should be so lucky.

What Fuller puts together is a piece that’s stereotype-shattering. It’s personal and intimate; you’ll laugh, you’ll cry. And you’ll come away with a better understanding of what it means to be autistic, and what it means to search for love no matter who you are or where you fall on a spectrum.

Tribeca: Life, Animated

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When you get to see a movie like this, it’s kind of a privilege to get to talk about it.

Life, Animated is a documentary featuring the amazing Suskind family. Actually a fairly typical, loving American family who happen to have a son named Owen who’s autistic.

Owen, the youngest of two boys, was a happy and rambunctious little 3 year old when autism reared its head, and suddenly the Suskinds had a boy who wouldn’t talk and who’d lost many of his newly-acquired toddler abilities and motor skills. He remained quiet and withdrawn for many years until his mother recognized a pattern in his gibberish – it was actually a line of dialogue from The Little Mermaid.

Owen was a big fan of Disney cartoons and often watched them with his family. What they hadn’t realized until then was that Owen wasn’t just watching them, he was studying them. He’d already memorized the complete scripts of several movies, and was learning to equate emotions with the slide-owen-drawing exaggerated facial features on his favourite cartoon characters. One day Owen’s father is able to hold his first conversation with him in years simply by pretending to be Iago, the talking parrot from Aladdin.

Fast forward to today, and Owen is a bright young adult. He’s learning skills to help him be more independent, and when he graduates, he’ll be moving into his own condo in a group home. Owen has flourished because his family was able to communicate with him through his beloved Disney movies. Disney canon became their family bible and Owen came out of the autism shell because of it. The Suskind family knows that Disney films won’t do it for all autistic kids, but they are encouraging families to find that one thing their child is passionate about, and to make it family culture. This is how they brought back their son and they only wish the same for others.

Owen’s dad Ron met the filmmaker, Roger Ross Williams (technically the first black Oscar-winning director, for a short he did in 2010), when both worked at Night Line. Ron had just written a book about his family’s experience and thought it might make an interesting documentary. Williams agreed. So do I.

I don’t know about this film’s potential to “save” other autistic kids. Owen is of course still autistic, but his parents and his brother can reach him now, they ZZ49547432 can express their love and see it reflected back, even if it’s a line originally quoted by Belle to the Beast. What I do know is that this film opens a lot of doors. This isn’t just a talking-head piece, we actually get to visit with Owen in his new situation, and his family as they continue to take on new challenges. We get to see autism in action, impacting a family and influencing a community. And we get to see that Owen is a guy with wants and needs like any other. He expresses them differently, and once you get the hang of his language, it’s not necessarily even worse, it’s just different.

Now as a young man, there’s still nothing Owen likes better than to chill with a Disney flick. When he’s feeling anxious, it’s 3 scenes of Dumbo. When he needs to overcome odds, Hercules will do the trick. When he grapples with growing up, it’s The Lion King to the rescue. It’s a code, but once deciphered, it’s actually pretty ingenious.

I do hope loads and loads of people will see this, and be encouraged to start a dialogue about what autism is and how we can all be part of a workable solution. Autism is a spectrum disorder, which means not all are like Owen. Some will be more or less affected, but I think the takeaway is that perhaps all lives could be improved if only we were looking for the right kinds of answers.

This isn’t the first documentary to look at autism, but what makes this one so Cg2IZfdWgAEvZad interesting and watchable is Owen himself, a very dynamic individual. He’s at his best at the helm of his Disney Club, where other learning-disabled young people gather to watch and discuss Disney animation. They may even run lines afterward, or play the score, and once in a while Jonathan Freeman, voice of Aladdin’s villain Jafar, drops in to lend a hand, and even Gilbert Gottfried, voice of Iago himself, has attended, but nobody knows the lines better than Owen himself.

Owen proved this at our screening at the Tribeca festival where he proudly put his skill on display, playing opposite Gilbert Gottfried, and even feeding him ZZ15895CF1 the lines. Many of the film’s crew were on hand, as well as the entire Suskind family, to launch this movie into orbit. There’s a lot of love and care gone into this work, and some of the best bits are when Owen’s own stories are beautifully animated (by Mac Guff). Owen identifies more with the sidekicks rather than the heroes of his beloved films, and he brings them to life in a very moving way.

They hope to take it to theatres this summer and I hope that you will all take the time to see it – it’s something special.

Tribeca: My Blind Brother

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Director Sophie Goodhart has a sister with MS and a willingness to tell the ugly truth: that as uncouth as it may be, sometimes we’re jealous of people with disabilities. They’re lauded for their bravery and showered with attention, and every one of their accomplishments is framed all the more positively in light of their disability.

my-blind-brother-2 In 2001, Goodhart channeled these feelings into a script for a short film called My Blind Brother, starring Tony Hale, and it’s taken all this time to hustle that short into her first feature length, but here it is, in all its unflinching, unpolitically correct glory.

Directing from her own script, Goodhart introduces us to two siblings, Bill and Robbie. Robbie (Adam Scott) is the blind brother, an athlete who raises money for visually-impaired children with various athletic feats. His brother Bill (Nick Kroll) is his virtual guide dog, running every race right beside him, keeping him out of harm’s way, while receiving absolutely none of the glory. Our expectations are reversed when the disabled saint actually turns out to be a bit of a prick, and his do-gooder brother is secretly seething with resentment and guilt. These are ingredients to a pretty awkward stew, but when you throw in a fucked up girl (Jenny Slate, drunkenly hooking up with Bill on the eve of her boyfriend’s funeral) trying to redeem herself by unwittingly volunteering with her one-night-stand’s blind brother, you get a pretty juicy jambalaya.

The casting also thwarts expectations, with Adam Scott dangerously good as a smug, vain, puffed-up pompous ass who just happens to be blind and Nick Kroll playing the relatively straight though unambitious brother. Slate, meanwhile, walks a thin line between charming and neurotic, and gets it mostly right. So they’re a fun trio to eavesdrop on, even though they’re encouraging you to do the one thing your mother would rap your knuckles for: laughing at the disabled.

But Goodhart makes sure that we’re never laughing at blindness per se (except for a few sight gags, ironically) but at all the constructs that make us tiptoe around a disability. Which maybe makes the movie sound a little more “issue movie” than it is. It’s a comedy, and a pretty easy breezy one at that. But you will laugh. I certainly did – and not just the guy at our screening who obliviously asked “Has the blind community seen this yet?”

Yes, Virginia, It IS Possible to Have A Drag Queen Revue Without Lady Marmalade

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Another double header – one that’s pretty good, one that’s pretty much not.

The good: Any Day Now, starring the ever fabulous Alan Cumming as Rudy, a down-on-his-luck drag queen whose whole life gets rewritten when his junkie neighbour abandons her son one night on a binge (and then gets picked up and put away by the vice squad). Rudy doesn’t quite know what do with Marco (Isaac Leyva), the quiet teenager with down syndrome, but he knows social services isn’t the answer. Together with his new partner Paul (Garret Dillahunt), they decide to adopt the kid and give Marco the kind of stable, loving home he needs. Except: it’s the 1970s. The would-be custody case turns into a witchhunt against the gay “deviant” lifestyle and the court system is quick to condemn them despite loads of evidence of them actually being really good parents. If you’re an Alan Cumming fan, as I am, then stop reading and just watch it already. It’s worth it just to hear him sing. It’s kind of melodramatic and manages to be both overblown and oversimplified, and yet Leyva’s smile lights up a screen and his two dads, and the fact that it’s taken the script 30 years to be made, remind us why movies like this exist. It has been a hard road for gay rights, but this film transcends that to point not just at the men who are being discriminated against, but the poor kid whose needs are being ignored because of a reprehensible justice system that fails to reflect any humanity. Warning: total tear jerker.

The not so good: Flawless, where Robert DeNiro plays a retired cop who strokes out during a crisis in his building. He’s too proud to leave his apartment after the resulting partial paralysis and is forced to hire a drag queen called Busty Rusty (Philip Seymour Hoffman) to help him in his recovery. Neither is very happy about the arrangement, and lots of gay slurs and hate speech is bandied about, but as you know from all oddball couple movies, they’ll soon grow to like each other, and then grow to need each other: aww. The script is…oh you know, some clever synonym for absolute failure (real sample: “You shot me? Why’d you shoot me?…You shot her! Why’d you shoot her?”…Normally I’d say you can’t make this shit up, except Joel Schumacher did). The drag queen character is…offensive. At best. It’s complete stereotype and would have been outdated even in 1999. I feel embarrassed for having watched this.

A treat:

Unable to Find the Disabled

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I have what you might call an invisible disability. I hurt all the time. All the fucking time. The last time I wasn’t in agony was 2003. Some days getting out of bed is beyond me, but every day is a challenge. I work through pain, and smile through pain, and watch movies through an enormous amount of pain. But I don’t use a wheelchair. I park in the disabled-accessible spot, and get out of my little red convertible in high heels and lip gloss and I don’t fit the picture of what disabled should apparently look like. If looks could kill, the dirty looks that come my way would be enough to disable me if I wasn’t already. And I’m not alone:

This nasty note may have come from a good place, but it was left on the van parked rightfully in a disabled spot. The van’s driver had her daughter with her, who suffers from hypophosphatasia, a rare genetic condition that causes bones to break – every step she takes could potentially result in a fracture.

This one was left by another anonymous coward on the vehicle of a young woman with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, which affects every organ in her body, causing her blood pressure to drop suddenly or her heart rate to accelerate, leaving her weak, or faint. I’m sure she’d gladly trade you her parking space for your health.

This awesome note-writer is actually right, for once. The BMW did belong to a young male professional – who happens to be paraplegic. It’s crazy but true: we don’t all drive vans. Sometimes us disabled folks drive cars that look surprisingly like yours! Unfortunately, they do not magically cure us of our illnesses, just like they seem not to cure your stupidity.

Anyway, I could go on and on, but you get the point. As if a lifetime of disability isn’t enough, you also get the fun judgement! And to get to my point (and I do have one): you also get zero representation at the movies.

Well, okay, not zero. But most times that disabilities are depicted in the movies, it goes like this: he was a nice normal guy, ironically loved using his legs until that tragic accident where he no longer could, now he’s super mad and who can blame him, but then he overcomes it, wow, what nobility. As good as both The Butterfly and the Diving Bell and The Intouchables are, the point of the movie is the disability. I’m looking for movies where the disability is incidental, and those are much harder to come by.

Notting Hill: One of Hugh Grant’s friends just happens to be in a wheel chair. She’s not a tragic character, she’s just one of the guys, none of whom are afraid to poke fun at her condition. The scene where they’re all rushing to reunite Hugh with Julia Roberts and she (played by Gina McKee, who is also terrific in Atonement and In The Loop) wants to sit it out because she’ll slow them down but her husband insists, and quickly packs both her and her chair into the car so she can still be one of the gang – that’s what I’m talking about.

Finding Nemo: Little Nemo has a “lucky fin”; it’s underdeveloped after an accident and it means he’s not a strong swimmer. But he’s brave and adventurous anyway, and refuses to be left behind. He can do anything his friends can do, and he’ll prove it til he’s in peril. In fact, much of this cast is a testament to accepting those who are differently abled: Nemo’s dad has anxiety, Dory has memory loss, and I believe there was even a little obsessive-compulsive cleaner fish in the tank. And yet they’re all just getting on with their lives the best way they can.

Four Weddings and a Funeral: In this one, Hugh Grant has a brother who is deaf. Grant had to learn sign language for his scenes with David Bower, who is also deaf in real life. Again, nothing is made of his disability, it’s just a fact. Brothers can be deaf. This brother in particular was deaf, and also a lady killer, and also quite sensitive to his brother’s true feelings.

Saved!: Macauley Culkin plays a paralyzed high school student. He’s a normal guy who just happens to use a wheel chair – he’s sarcastic, horny, and tired of his goody-two-shoes sister. He’s also learning to enjoy a measure of independence.

Nothing against My Left Foot, but it is nice, and I think, important to show people with disabilities who aren’t particularly courageous or noble, but who are simply living among us, touching butts and stealing the last brownie just like any other jerk. This list is woefully short – certainly I’ve missed many. If your memory is better than mine (and believe me, it is), let me know in the comments!

Intouchables

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I can’t tell if this movie is Cinderella or Driving Miss Daisy or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. I suppose it’s most accurate to call it some fairy tale hybrid of all three.

It’s about a black dude from “the street” who goes to work for a stuffy white one, who happens to be paralyzed from the neck down. A super tough situation for even a trained personal support worker, which of course he isn’t. But Driss and Philippe form the obligatory bridging-the-race-gap friendship, and white guy comes back to life, as it were, thanks to, you know, watching the black guy dance to Earth, Wind & Fire and stuff.

I actually like this movie. I should have said that first, because reading the above has probably given you the wrong impression. Everyone will like this movie because you’re supposed to. It’s feel-good, dammit. I dare you NOT to have your goods felt after this. I’m all felt up.

Basically, the two actors are pretty great. Omar Sy as Driss and Francois Cluzet as Philippe are an excellent pair. They play off each other well and have great on-screen chemistry that makes their friendship seem real. Their “unlikely” friendship, I should say, because I have a feeling that’s what the blurb on the back of the DVD would say if I had it here in front of me. It’s probably a little insulting that in 2015 we still think of an interracial friendship as unlikely. Even thinking of it as interracial is unnatural. But the film keeps reminding us that it is, because all of Philippe’s uptight (white) friends keep stage-whispering it to him, as if quadriplegia has also affected his eyes.

In fact, Philippe hired the likes of Driss because he’s tired of being pitied. Driss doesn’t have a pitying bone in his body, but apparently he’s got a lot of tender ones because very quickly he’s the best little nursemaid in town. Never has looking after a severely disabled individual for money seemed so fun! Plus, there’s the Pretty Woman aspect – he gets exposed to (white) culture – you know, museums, expensive cars, classical music. And yes, Philippe even buys him a new suit so he can look pretty at a party. But don’t you worry. Driss contributes too. He buys the weed.

Okay, now this review is making ME think I didn’t like the movie. And I did! It’s just a little facile, I suppose, compared to the Diving Bell. It’s sugary and sweet and avoids the sticky spots by a wide margin. It’s really just a buddy movie with pretensions. The acting saves it from slipping into maudlin and the two make an irresistible (interracial) pair.

You’re Not You

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Hilary Swank plays a pianist with a slight tremor in her hand that quickly turns out to be ALS, which will kill her brutally and swiftly.

Watching a movie like this unlocks a lot of emotions for me, and I should really know better than to attempt it. I’m a wayyyy-too-sensitive person who feels all the feelings because I can relate to almost anything personally. This makes me a very good therapist and a very vulnerable movie watcher. Even a bad movie, which this is, can hold quite a punch for someone who lives with a chronic disease, which I do. While my brain is telling me that I’m nothing like Hilary Swank, my heart is in total panic mode.

The ALS attacks Kate viciously – about a year and a half from the first twitch, she can’t walk unaided, and she can’t use her hands. Her husband (Josh Duhamel) feeds her, bathes her, and puts her to bed at night. She has become his patient rather than his wife. She fires her day time caregiver because she too tries to treat her like a patient while Kate is still struggling to hold on to the last of her dignity, still trying to deny the severity of her illness. So when Bec (Emmy Rossum) breezes in, unqualified and inattentive, it seems like the perfect pairing. Kate won’t get babied, and Bec won’t get evicted. And she arrives just in time to help Kate uncover her husband’s infidelity. Kate seems to absorb it as almost deserved at first, but Bec is a show of strength (if nothing else) and gives her the courage to throw her husband out, even after everything he’s done for her.

Two things: Although I generally felt this movie was too schmaltzy for my taste, I did think this was an interesting question that people seem to react very differently to. Since Kate is so dependent on her husband now, and by all accounts he’s been very attentive to her medical needs, is his cheating maybe a little more acceptable? Especially since he and Kate haven’t been intimate? Should she have looked the other way? Accepted that their marriage is just different now?

Second thing; Like many, I first came across Emmy Rossum as Christine Daae in The Phantom of the Opera. She seemed pure and ethereal and untouchable, so it’s funny that the only other thing I really know her from is Shameless, where she plays white trash so, so convincingly. Bec is a lot like Fiona, brash and foul-mouthed but selfless when push comes to shove.

The disease is overshadowed and the director’s intentions tend toward the kleenex box, unabashedly. I knew this movie wasn’t even taking itself seriously when Josh Duhamel was cast so I didn’t have much in the way of expectations and it didn’t do much to try to exceed them.