PG | 1 h 47 min | Drama, Biopic | 2010
There’s a scene in this film where autistic female protagonist, Mary Temple Grandin (Claire Danes), in a deserted corridor, speaks a little too loudly, “My name is Temple Grandin. I’m not like other people.” Rather than allow autism to alienate her from others, she uses it to unite people in better understanding autism and handling livestock. This biopic draws on the true-life story of the Boston-born autist, author, and respected animal behaviorist.
In the film, little Grandin is largely silent and withdrawn until she’s 4 years old. She’s then diagnosed as autistic. Then, with limited knowledge in the 1950s and ‘60s, doctors typically institutionalized such people. Grandin’s mother Eustacia Cutler (Julia Ormond) won’t hear of it. She’d rather her daughter have a shot at an education. So, she seeks out specialists to sharpen Grandin’s social skills.
Dr. Carlock (David Strathairn), Temple’s school science teacher, who used to work for NASA, spots her gift of thinking visually and encourages her to study further. That fires up Grandin’s positive self-perception and fuels her ambition to make a difference.
At the ranch of her aunt Ann (Catharine O’Hara), teenaged Grandin notices that the squeeze chute, ordinarily meant to hold agitated cattle, has a calming effect on her during her panic attacks. Later, in college, she draws on this newly discovered connection with animals, experimenting with similar mechanical solutions for herself and other autistic children. She goes on to qualify in psychology and animal science.
Slowly, she brings these ideas to cattle ranches, improving how livestock are handled through her innovative dip structure that encourages cattle to move on their own instead of being forced. But not all ranches have faith in her or her structures. Poor implementation of her guidance backfires. Devastated, will she give up?
Director Mick Jackson uses inspired camera positions, imaginative shot sequencing, and rapid-fire montages to mirror Grandin’s inner world. In interviews, he’s said that the studio, HBO, stayed thoughtful throughout, “We needed cows, so HBO bought a herd of cows!”
Different, Not Less
Executive producer Emily Gerson Saines, who struggled with her son’s autism, pitched the idea of a biopic to the real-life Ms. Grandin with trepidation. Luckily for her, Ms. Grandin not only agreed, but stayed involved throughout production, ensuring that the themes were treated sensitively.The film highlights how overstimulation (via too many sounds or colors) can trigger panic among autists. Their otherwise irritating behavior— such as rolling on floors or spinning repeatedly in swings—calms them. A tantrum to one can be therapy to another. As Ms. Grandin tells an astonished autism-seminar audience in one scene, “Being held by surfaces produces a calming effect that ordinary children get from a hug.” She keeps reminding herself and others that autists are unique, not inferior, “Different, not less!”
Empathetically, Ms. Danes fleshes out her character’s arc, from awkward adolescence to a more socially adjusted adulthood. She sometimes looks nowhere in particular as she speaks, her eyes widening with each word or phrase, as if the wider her eyes, the more her inner eye sees. She perfects the downward-facing look, a common autistic childhood habit to avoid excessive eye contact. She mimics Ms. Grandin’s loud, raspy voice, unafraid of speaking up and speaking out when autism’s being misunderstood.
Some of Ms. Grandin’s problem-solving flows from her ability to think pictorially. Her memory pulls up all the images she’s ever seen, at once or in rapid succession, even if a single object is called to mind, such as a horse or a shoe.
Mr. Jackson conveys this singular style of seeing things through an electrifying scene. Carlock is gently probing Grandin on her thinking process. She explains matter-of-factly. In her mind’s eye, when someone mentions a horse, she sees all the horses she’s ever seen: Images from books, pictures from magazines, photographs from calendars, advertisements, or moving images of horses from her past. Carlock is stunned, “Can you bring everything you’ve seen to your mind?” Grandin says, “Sure!” Then, after rattling off remembered images for a while, hearing him gasp, she stops. Instantly self-aware and shocked that this isn’t how most people visualize, she turns to him, “Can’t you?”
