Excuse me for being a little slow in reading a Gazette review, but in your Feb 3, 2010, Life Television section, Dean Robbins reviewed the "Temple Grandin," a true-life HBO movie based on a woman with autism starring Claire Danes.
From what I read, Mr. Robbins gave the movie an overly mediocre rating. I strongly disagree. I have a 12-year-old son with autism, and I struggle every day to understand even some of the most basic things he says and does, even though, I might add, he is a very high-functioning autistic child.
I DVRed the movie so my wife and I could watch it. I found it very interesting and very informative, and it gave me some insight that I just haven't found in all the "professional medical books" that we have. I often wonder what's going on inside my son's mind, what it must be like, and what his thoughts are and what they are like.
While they may not be like Temple Grandin's, the movie did let me see what they could be like, as my son and Temple are a lot alike, autistically speaking. Danes did a wonderful job capturing the essence, the spirit and the characteristics of some forms of autism, right down to the puzzled looks that I receive from time to time. Some forms of autism leave people with beautifully brilliant minds, and a very different and difficult way of expressing it. My son is this way.
What Temple has accomplished, and others like her, is amazing to say the least, and to try to make that mediocre just to be able to make a joke at the end of the review is distasteful. Temple's mother was right: People with autism are "different, but not less," and this film was, in my words "different, but so much more." Please watch with an open mind, and I promise you will enjoy.
Thank you.
"Lane Martin
Noble
