Autism: The Musical (2007)

This was an excellent movie, an excellent documentary and one of the best I have seen in a long time. The director did a great job really keying to the strong points of each subject(character) particularly Wyatt. He is by far the most intriguing of all the subjects and the director's portrayal of him was absolutely perfect. There are some incredibly strong and emotional moments in this movie that will have you on the brink of tears or crying. The directors decision to just let Wyatt talk and be himself was absolutely the best directorial decision I have ever seen in any movie. His conversation with his mother is absolutely mesmerizing, he is so smart, he is so far beyond his years. It also really sets up the frustration that his parents have because he is smart enough to handle regular classes, yet he still doesn't fit. If he was my son, screw it you go to regular school and you show everybody. The most powerful moment in this film is when Lexi is typing to her mother, and she asks her to explain what Autism is and she can't get out the right words so she just says I love you. I almost cry just thinking about it, and as an actor I will always turn to that scene when I need to shell out emotions, Im surprised her mom didn't respond with more emotion but it is probably because Lexi does that quite often. The frustration of not being able to communicate with your children has got to be the most difficult thing about Autism.

I only have a few issues with the film but none to not recommend it. One of my biggest issues is that all of the children in the program are rich from what I saw from the movie. So I think the next group of kids for the miracle project should probably come from slightly different backgrounds. I'm interested to see how people who don't have money deal, because to be frank there are probably tons of kids who have autism that aren't diagnosed as such. They go to school everyday and struggle and struggle and they deal with teachers who don't care and who aren't sympathetic to their needs. So they dismiss them as bad, or crazy or whatever, or add, adhd. I mean seriously how easy would it be to take someone like Adam and label him as just a bad misbehaved kid. It would be terribly easy, and that's what happens to a lot of children. My other issue is that I would have liked to hear a little bit more about the exact diagnosis of the different children's autism, and what autism really is. I do understand that autism is a widely misunderstood disease so maybe that's why.

THIS MOVIE IS EXCELLENT, I watch it every time it comes on. And to be honest it changed the way I viewed some things because I myself have had some problems communicating and it really showed me the frustration my family might have from me doing that.