Life, Animated
You don’t realize how much of real life is squeezed into a Disney animated film. Life, Animated is a new documentary out by Roger Ross Williams about Owen Suskind a young man with Autism obsessed with Disney animated classics. Throughout the film Suskind and his father quotes lines from the movies that directly relate or are pertinent to Owen’s life: the fears, the highs, the lows. Even Owen himself sees parallels, how things always look worse before they get better, how the bad guy is all part of the hero’s journey, the necessary role of the sidekick. Owen’s life could be a Disney classic. For someone who needs the help of social cues, these movies become tools for Owen to navigate his life. As a 3-year-old Owen suddenly lost speech and retreated into a world of his own. A room without doors. His parents with the help of therapists and teacher searched for inroads, but ran into roadblocks. UNTIL one day, once upon a time, they discovered Owen repeating some lines from ...