Having autistic children myself has left me with very high standards for film treatments of this disorder, but I have never seen a movie that infuriated and insulted me more than this one. Every family relationship in this movie is fake, and the focus is entirely on the mother, played by Anjelica Huston, not on the autistic son, Randall. His problem only exists in so far as it affects her - he is handicapped, she suffers; the strain turns her husband to womanizing, and she suffers; husband leaves, son turns violent and has to be sent away, and she suffers. It's easy to see who is the star in this family, and who deserves all our pity and consideration. In addition to the phony family dynamics, there are simple matters of everyday life that don't add up. A family splits up and one of the members is severely handicapped, but this doesn't seem to affect anyone financially at all - dad just moves to his own apartment, and mom and the kids keep living the life of southern planters in a big old Victorian house; she doesn't even have to go to work, not even when Randall is instutionalized in a fine (and therefore expensive) school where he finally learns to eat normally and communicate. Once the problem child is out of the way, dad returns home and everything is peachy again, and nobody seems to find this the least bit disgusting, or think such a gutless husband and father is perhaps not worth having.
It's the ending, though, that really left me outraged; once Randall is run over by a car and killed, mom in a great burst of feminist liberation shouts "I'm free! I'm free!" kicks dad out and divorces him, and out of nowhere embarks upon a successful and satisfying career as a theatrical scene painter. Turns out that despite her devotion to her handicapped son, she always saw him as a total lost cause and never loved him as much as she did her normal children. Thank goodness he does the right thing at last and dies so that she can get on with doing what she wants with her much more important life. This is a selfish "do your own thing" screed masquerading as a serious look at a serious disability, and I found it utterly disgusting. There was only one good thing about it, and that was the performance of Dermott Mulroney as the older brother, Mack. He was realistic and rough-edged, and was the only real person in the entire movie.
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