A young woman with
autism travels across California to submit her Star Trek
script to Paramount for a competition.
This is a perfectly harmless movie. I want to make that clear right away. Dakota Fanning gives a committed performance as a girl with autism. She doesn't try to go too big with it or get too mannered. I bought the character. The rest of the small, but better-than-I-expected-for-the-size-of-the-movie cast play their parts well. Maybe casting Patton Oswalt as "cop who knows Klingon" is a little obvious. Alice Eve as the worried sister and Toni Collette as Fanning's [I'm not sure what the right term is] caretaker mix their lack of understanding of Fanning with their affection for her well.
Most of what I know about autism is what I've learned from TV and film characters. Autism and especially Aspergers have been all the rage for over a decade now. It's an easy way to give a character a mental condition* without getting too messy. In fact, a lot of shows treat it like a superpower (Thanks Rain Man). I'd be curious to hear what someone with autism or who works more closely with autistic people think about this. It strikes me as a best case scenario view. Fanning's Wendy runs into just the right complications and meets just the right people along the way for this to work out. If I inspect this a little closer, I doubt it would pass my One Big Leap test simply due to the number of breaks she gets, for ill or for better.
*I don't know the correct terminology, so please assume I mean the nicest version of whatever word(s) I use.
The theming is a bit obvious too. I hope no one hurt themselves linking Spock to autism. That's such an original observation. It's still effective when we learn what her screenplay is about though.
That dog does a lot of the heavy lifting emotionally. Give any character a dog as a best friend and I'll find them relatable and endearing. And the movie is very aware of this. I'm fine with this kind of exploitation.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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