Temple Grandin biopic review

As usual, we did it by halves, backwards. We never do anything the "normal" way around here. The Viking and I had just re-watched 1.5 episodes of "Rome" (as good as ever), our usual relaxation involving DVD sets, a grabbed hour or so, the couch, and for the Viking, vodka. When it was over, we felt that as it was Saturday night and not quite our bedtime, we'd channel surf. The Temple Grandin biopic was already DVR'd, but when we stumbled across it in progress on HBO, we left it there and watched.

And watched. And watched. And when it restarted from the beginning at the next time slot, we watched the first half, too. We stayed up until one thirty a.m. I'm usually not up at that hour unless someone's hurling.

Obviously, as autism parents, we were looking for things that reminded us of our son. And there were some. The lean-to she gives near the end as a "hug" is so very TH. Her ability to be more social after being "hugged" by her hugging machine. The way she feels the pulse--and literally the heartbeat--of nature in ways that non-autistic people never could. Her visual acuity. That loud, unmodulated, top-speed way of talking. And the way she burst out with whatever question was in her head, at top volume, without regard for typical social interactions or her audience. Very very TH.

But there were things about her, at least as this movie depicts her and also from what I've heard her say in interviews, that are very much not like our son. She has executive function of some sort, able to plan and execute large, complex projects, usually involving machines or architecture. TH, at least at this point, wouldn't be able to plan and build a shoebox from a shoebox. And she apparently has real fine motor skills, although one scene shows her running in an awkward, akimbo fashion that reminded me very much of our son. It may be that these differences, these distinctions, are just another illustration that if you've met one autistic person, you've met one autistic person. Or, perhaps, as is becoming more recognized, girls and women manifest autism in some different ways.

Her mother in the movie reminded me of me, but also of every other autism parent and parent I know. Passionate about her daughter's abilities, patient but anxious, refusing to give up on her child, insisting that her child reach full potential. Near the end of the movie, when Temple is speaking at an autism conference, she describes her mother using words that apparently reminded the Viking so much of me, he patted my foot--one of his key expressions of connection--and said, "Just like you, sweetie." Aw. Although I think Temple was essentially describing her mother as...um...not putting up with much.

More than anything, the mother, as played by Julia Ormond, treated her daughter with an honesty and insistence that reminded me of Temple Grandin's own observation: autistic or not, our children need to learn good behavior, good manners, the ability to set a clock and get up in the morning. Her mother, at least the way the movie portrays it, was one of the driving forces behind the bravery that helped Temple overcome the obstacles she encountered, and sometimes, autism seemed to be the least of these. The scene between the mother and the doctor who diagnoses Temple's autism is worth the price of HBO for a year. Bettelheim, anyone?

I'm making it sound like we spent this entire movie analyzing it from the perspective of living with autism. But we didn't. Yes, we did burst into laughter at some of the familiar things that cropped up, especially that lean-to hug, but primarily, we were mesmerized by this woman and her world--not the autism, but the cows. And the awful misogyny. And the way she worked her away around and through that wall of male bullsh!t--and in one scene, bull testicles--just as effectively as she imagined and designed the structures that worked cows around and through their bovine fear.

This is certainly the well-written, extraordinarily well-acted story of an autistic woman, one who continues to startle a world that has not quite come to grips with autism's sometime potential. But it's also the story of a woman whose autism gave her the persistence, the obsession, and the mind necessary to bore her way through the phalanx of resistance she encountered again and again, not because she was autistic, but because she was a woman. On any level, this movie is worth watching, and we'll be watching it again. I think that this time, though, we'll drop the in medias res approach and start at the beginning.