Different, But Not Less...

Hello Freedomphiles!   As the father of an autistic son, I have read dozens of books and watched all the movies that portray people with Autism.  When I first heard the words "Autism" and "Aspergers," it was a uniquely terrifying and humbling experience.  I didn't really know what either was, to be sure, and my only experience with Autism was watching Rain Man.  I looked at my kid and could not envision him saying, "Ten minutes to Wapner."  In fact, for some time, I resisted the label "autistic," preferring to convince myself that my son's Asperger's Syndrome was a completely different animal altogether.

I've never been comfortable in a state of ignorance - especially in a case like this that is so personal.  So, I did what many parents of the newly-diagnosed did: I hit the internet and the local public library.  I tried to soak up as much information as I possibly could about the condition and learn strategies for coping and thriving.  It's always been a feature of my makeup that when I want to learn something, I just throw myself into it, reading and watching everything I can get my hands on - to the unfortunate exclusion of other areas of my life.  (They say that often the parents of autistic children exhibit some of the symptoms themselves, if not enough for a diagnosis themselves.  This may be one of those - what my wife and I call "Aspie traits."  This is how I have learned most of what I know, from political philosophy to punk rock to economics to the Zephyr Skate Team.)

After reading a stack of books on Autism and Asperger's, I started to get burnt out.  I realized after awhile that even though they had different authors, I was essentially reading the same book over and over.  I wasn't learning anything new, and I certainly wasn't learning what I so desperately wanted to learn - how to understand my son.  

He was - and still is - a mystery to me.  He is a wonderful, generous, freakishly smart kid, but he just doesn't understand his own feelings.  If he doesn't understand them, how can he possibly explain them to me?  So, I adjusted, changing my focus from self-help and scientific books to personal narratives, like John Elder Robison's Look Me in the Eye, ten year-old Kenneth Hall's Asperger Syndrome, the Universe and Everything, and even the book Diagnosing Jefferson, that pores over personal accounts of the eccentricities and behaviors of my favorite founder to convincingly argue he was Autistic.  In fact, I am reading one right now, The Best Kind of Different, by Curt Schilling's wife, Shonda.

But it wasn't until I read Thinking in Pictures by Dr Temple Grandin that I really felt I was getting somewhere.  Here, finally, were the words of a pioneer in the fields of Autism and animal husbandry - someone who had engaged in extensive self-examination and authored a book that attempts and succeeds at illustrating how the mind of an autistic works.  It was in her story that I found some measure of understanding, and more importantly, hope.

Here were the words of a truly extraordinary woman, born in an age when there was no real understanding of Autism, when most autistic children were institutionalized and only a handful of people in the world had even heard of Asperger's Syndrome.  Here was a woman that didn't even speak her first word until she was four years old, who went on to earn a doctorate and revolutionize the way that the beef industry handles cattle to be more efficient and humane.  Right now, over half of all slaughterhouses in North America were designed by Dr Grandin.

So, it was with great anticipation last night that my wife and I sat down to watch HBO's new biopic, Temple Grandin, starring the amazing Claire Danes (at right, pictured with Temple, now age 62) in the title role.

My one-word review is, "Wow."  I was completely blown away by this story, which was more of a straight-up biography than the book, and by the performances of Claire Danes and Julia Ormand, who plays Temple's mother, Eustacia.

I've seen a lot of movies on Autism and Asperger's, from the excellent Mozart and the Whale to the sweet but schmaltzy Adam, which, coincidentally, stars Danes' husband, Hugh Dancy.  But like Grandin's book, this film takes it to a whole other level.

The whole film is anchored by Danes' incredible performance.  With Dancy's role in Adam, I saw probably more of my son in his portrayal, but the character of Adam was merely a collection of symptoms, with no real individual person in there (this may have been more a problem with the script than the character).  

Danes, on the other hand, who in some ways had an easier time because she is playing a real person, crawled inside of Temple Grandin and almost literally became her.  She played the role straight, without the usual maudlin characteristics typical of the "dysfunction of the week" movie that inhabit the boob tube.  She played the role not as a caricature or an impression, but as Temple.  So accurate was her portrayal, Temple herself, who had made herself infinitely available to Danes during production, said watching the film was "like going in sort of a weird time machine...I whispered to Claire...'Can you believe that's really you?'" 

Within minutes, I had forgotten that I was watching a girl I've been crushing on since the mid-90's, and quite simply just believed I was watching Temple.  Now, I probably watched this differently than most people will.  I watched it as the parent of an Autistic child - I felt every failure, every schoolyard taunt, and every exhilarating victory in that same vicarious way I am sure her mother experienced them.  Without the perfect portrayal of Claire Danes, this would not have been possible.

To be clear, the film wasn't preachy or over-sentimental, and that is perhaps why the payoffs packed such an emotional wallop.  I found myself tearing up and choking back sobs a half a dozen times while watching it, and no other movie or television show that features the struggles of the Autistic has ever done that to me.  I didn't feel that I was being dragged through an emotional minefield, with every shot set up to illicit some tear-jerking response.  The film was honest and stark in its portrayal, and effectively put me in Temple's head.  When she flinched away from the sound of a squeaky marker, when she stood terrified in front of a guillotine-like sliding door, I stood with her.

The difference between this movie and other movies is the same as the difference between Temple's book and other books on Autism - those other books and movies were outsider's views of Autism, while this movie and the book it is based on are insider views.  It helped me get inside the head of an Autistic person, helped me understand.

The director, Mick Jackson, did a remarkable job bringing Temple's brain to the screen, showing how she doesn't think linearly, but associatively.  When she sees her favorite horse, her mind rapidly flips through a rolodex of every single horse of that kind she has ever seen, in full color moving pictures.  When she sees a faulty gate, she doesn't see it as a whole, but as a sum of its parts, every detail apparent to her, every angle, every lever and hinge.  She can see instantly how it could be improved, building 3D models in her head, manipulating and testing them to a degree even the most sophisticated CAD program could not duplicate.  When she builds her invention, she already knows it will work because it has already gone through extensive trials - in her mind.

In watching the film, it seems that Temple Grandin was very fortunate.  She was fortunate to have a mother who would not give up on her; fortunate to have an aunt (the wonderful Catherine O'Hara in another great performance) that introduced her to working with livestock and gave her the freedom to develop her own methods of coping, even when she found it odd or distasteful; fortunate that she had a science teacher, Dr Carlock (David Strathairn), who recognized her unique way of thinking and nurtured her peculiar genius; fortunate that there was always at least one person who recognized what she had to offer and championed her cause.  She was fortunate because she approached life with a single-minded determination that made failure only an option for others.

That is what I hope for with my own son.  I pray that he has a teacher like Dr Carlock that will help us identify Connor's particular talents and nurture them.  I pray that I can instill in Connor the same kind of determination that made Dr Grandin the amazing person she is.  I pray that I can be half the parent Eustacia was.

And what a parent.  Back when Temple was diagnosed, people thought Autism was created by cold, distant "refrigerator mothers."  Eustacia loved her daughter beyond reason, and I can only imagine what it must have been like to be told her daughter's condition was her fault.  Instead of sinking into a malaise of self-pity, she rolled up her sleeves and got to work.  She taught Temple to speak, to read, to navigate the complexity of social give-and-take.

Ormond played this role with perfect pitch.  As much as this film gave me an insight into what it was like to be Temple, I immediately identified with Eustacia.  I haven't had it nearly as hard as she did, but I am all too familiar with the judgmental comments and glances of people.  I am familiar with the daily struggle to help my child understand the world.  I am familiar with the feeling that no matter how hard I try, I'm not doing enough.

When Eustacia takes Temple to the boarding school where she is to blossom, during the interview, she gets defensive and eventually walks out.  Dr Carlock follows her out and tells her that while she is acting like someone defending everything they've done wrong, she has actually done everything right.  The look in Ormond's eyes when she hears this relates the surprise, relief, and appreciation she must have felt when finally being told she's doing a good job.  It was the first of several times I wiped the wetness from my eyes.

Eustacia struggled with quiet dignity, a Harvard graduate in a world that expects little of her, raising a child everyone thought should be institutionalized, watching her daughter build a "squeeze machine" that gave her a comforting hug when she couldn't even embrace her own mother.  I know from reading Temple's book that her mother was never even sure her daughter loved her at all (she does), and though it wasn't ever mentioned in the film, I felt it in Ormand's amazing performance.

In the final scene, Temple and her mother go to an Autism convention in the early 80's, and listening to a doctor prattle on, illustrating how little they understood about Autism at the time, she finally stands up and contradicts the doctor, who is saying they have to discourage the therapeutic spinning (one of Connor's go-to therapies).

She says that spinning, rolling, rocking and hugging are calming for Autistics in her loud, rapid way of speaking, and someone asks her if she has Autistic kids.  She tells them she has none, that she is autistic herself.  The entire crowd turns from the doctor and rushes to her, wondering how it is that this woman can be the way she is, when they are struggling in darkness to help their own children.

She begins to tell them that it was her mother, who never gave up on her, who persevered in the face of every obstacle and naysayer, who pushed her relentlessly to do things no one thought she could do.  Her mother sat quietly next to her, holding back the tears as she finally felt what she hadn't grasped before - her daughter does understand, does appreciate what she has done for her.  Her daughter loves her, just in her own way.

And cue the waterworks.  Even writing about it, I have the same gut response I did then, tearing up as my fingers pound the keyboard.  This woman fought so hard to give her daughter a chance in this world, to be taken seriously and respected in a world short on second-glances, defiantly telling people that her daughter was "different, but not less."

Honestly, though, upon reflection, I think that this mother and daughter were not simply "different, but not less."  I think the more appropriate way to put it would be "different, but extraordinary."

HBO Films: Temple Grandin Trailer

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