Tag: rom com

Autism in ‘The Other Sister’

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

This week I’d like to talk about the depiction of autism in the 1999 romantic comedy film ‘The Other Sister‘, starring Juliette Lewis and Diane Keaton.

Fun fact– Juliette Lewis also appeared in another film featuring an autistic character, ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.’

So what’s the film about?

The film centres around mildly mentally disabled Carla Tate who has lived a sheltered life in a private school. Upon graduation, she returns home to her overprotective mother determined to earn a diploma from a local technical university so that she can become a veterinary assistant and establish her independence. Whilst at college, she meets and falls in love with Danny (who is also mentally disabled), and seeing his independent life, she further advocates for her own life and an apartment, much to the chagrin of her oftentimes controlling mother.

While autism is never explicitly mentioned, both Carla and Danny display a number of autistic traits such as coordination issues, impulsivity, fondness for routine, specialist interests, food issues and lack of filter in social settings.

You can see a trailer for the film bel0w:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGlc0FxRjbM

So what did I make of it?

As a story, I enjoyed it. It was a wholesome romantic comedy that broke the mould at the time by featuring a mentally disabled couple at it’s core, showing that neurodivergents, despite our differences, want to have ordinary romantic relationships like everyone else. However, the film largely received negative views for the acting (Juliette Lewis was nominated for a Razzie for her performance) and shameless use of disability as a gimmick.

In terms of autism, this was a fairly run of the mill affair, standard stereotypical traits, but unlike the critics I found their depiction fairly inoffensive compared with other more stereotyped examples.

All in all, while not the most relatable depiction of autism when compared with other romantic movies featuring autistic couples (like ‘Mozart and the Whale‘), the film is still worth a watch 🙂

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a lovely weekend! 🙂

Aoife

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Autism on Screen- Keep the Change

 

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

As it’s been a while since I’ve done one of these, this week I decided to check out the 2017 indie film ‘Keep the Change‘ a quirky rom-com about 2 autists who meet at a support group and fall in love.

Image result for keep the change

David is an aspiring film maker that has been required by court order to attend a support group (after an inappropriate joke get’s him into a spot of bother) wherein he meets the bubbly Sara, an enthusiastic singer with perfect pitch. After a rocky start, the two fall in love, their differences and families push them apart but ultimately they get back together again.

Nothing particularly original there, it’s a similar premise to ‘Mozart and the Whale‘, however, the unique thing about this film is that the principal cast are all on the spectrum in real life! 😲

I know!

What’s more, the story is based on Brandon Polansky’s (the actor that plays David) first serious relationship in real life, which sadly ended before filming.

You can check out a trailer for the film here:

This film actually originated as a 15 minute short film in 2013 which you can see in it’s entirety below:

So what did I make of the film?

Well, for the first time I won’t be complaining about the lack of accuracy in the portrayal of life with autism as the actors themselves are living the experience every day! Similarly, there are no savant stereotypes portrayed, just regular people navigating life on the spectrum. It’s refreshing to see a film keeping it real and true to the autistic experience (although that being said, some of the romantic interactions seemed to me to be more exaggerated and cringe worthy than I’d imagine the true story was!).

However, as authentic and well researched as this film is, I personally found the film a little bit lackluster for my tastes. Moreover, I would have loved to see more diversity in the support group as we saw in the most recent series of ‘Atypical‘. We didn’t get much of a look a the different personality types, interests and traits of the supporting characters, so they all sorted of blended into one “happy-clappy” entity.

As I’ve said before, it would be great to see more diversity in the portrayal of higher functioning autists. Yes, a lot of the characters we see on screen are high functioning, but these characters are still quite dependent on their families and each other to navigate the world. It would be nice one day to see the ‘lost generation’ of autists on screen- those of us who travel through life undiagnosed, undetected and struggling in silence.

Image result for keep the change

All in all, if you’ve an interest in films about autism, this one’s a must add to your list 🙂

Have a good weekend everyone! 😀

Aoife

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