Life, Animated

Synopsis: Ron and Corneli Suskind  are stunned when their three year old son, Owen, is diagnosed with severe autism. Over the years Owen learns to communicate with others and understand the world around him by repeatedly watching Disney animated movies.

Whilst Life, Animated is on one level a special interest documentary that will resonate most with parents and carers in similar position to Owen’s parents it is beyond that a touching story of the courage needed to rise above the unfairness of life and the profound love that parents have for their children.

Based on the book of the same name by Owen's father, Ron Suskind, a Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist, the documentary flips between Owen's childhood seen in snippets of home-movie footage and his current situation as a 23 year-old about to leave his family home for the first time and get his own apartment in an assisted living community.

The film shows us how Owen, locked, as his father puts it, in the “prison of autism" learned how to process his experiences by watching Disney movies like Peter Pan, Aladdin, and The Lion King, eventually, with the help of therapists, gaining a workable level of functionality.  While there are touching moments such as Owen addressing an autism conference, the film, at least for the general viewer, will be of most interest when those who look after him, particularly his parents and older brother speak. The burden they carry is palpable for as much as he has progressed he is clearly far removed  from normal emotional and intellectual development level of someone his age. 

Director Roger Ross Williams uses sophisticated animated sequences inspired by Owen' s own very skilful drawings and stories to extend his fairly limited material although at times the footage from the Disney movies shown so closely match  the narrative that one wonders if they are Owen’s choice or those of a director over-keen to make his point.

Although the film never goes near it, one can’t help but reflect on the fact that most of us grew up watching Disney (I still recall the devastating scene when Bambi’s mother is shot by hunters, a scene which appears in this film). We might have moved on but how many of us still use movies to make sense of our lives?  It’s just a question of degree.

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