Owen’s parents were worried when the 3 year old’s motor skills unraveled and his speech dissolved into gibberish. They were heartbroken when their boy was diagnosed as severely autistic. Years went by before they noticed that he was repeating a snatch of dialogue from Disney’s Little Mermaid. The physicians cautioned it was only “echolalia”—the boy was simply parroting sounds without understanding. And then one day, Owen’s dad, Wall Street Journal reporter Ron Suskind, had an epiphany. While playing with a hand puppet of the character Iago from Aladdin, Owen began speaking full sentences from the movie. Before long, the Suskinds realized that Disney animated films were the key to releasing Owen from the prison of his disability.
The remarkable story is recounted in the documentary Life, Animated. At the time the film was made, Owen had turned 23 and is shown graduating from a special school and moving into his own home. He speaks fluently if in tongue-tied accents, and is fully ambulatory if stiffly with chin down. And despite having seen the movies over and over, he explodes into furious excitement while watching his Disney DVDs.
Life, Animated presents many points to consider, starting with the nurturing power of a loving family. Ron, his wife Cornelia, and their eldest son Walt, never abandoned Owen but provided a caring environment. Walt spent many hours watching Disney movies with his younger sibling after noticing how the boy lit up when those familiar characters appeared on screen. Affluence also helped. The Suskinds were able to send Owen to a succession of exclusive schools.
The process by which Disney became Owen’s portal into the world is mysterious. Certainly, the oversized emotions and gestures of those colorfully hued animated characters made a profound impression on the boy. If an inability to sort through life by editing external stimuli is a defining characteristic of autism, then perhaps Owen found a simplified lexicon of reality through the fantasy of Disney.
Life, Animated touches on the limits as well as the possibilities this imposes on Owen but also makes us wonder if he differs from many non-autistic people in degree rather than in kind. Unpredictability makes Owen nervous. He expects life to be linear. He likes to read his next moves from a script written by other hands and tries to make sense of complexity through the simple formula of tales told in cartoons.
Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams makes good use of home video from Owen’s childhood, including a scene of the young boy pressed against the fuzzy image of Mickey Mouse on the living room TV screen, and juxtaposes scenes from Disney features with the reality of Owen’s life. Ron, Cornelia and Walt provide memories and insights and Owen is game for being interviewed. Not surprisingly, one of Owen’s projects in his special school was teaching a class on Disney animated films, focused on close readings of the moral from each story.
Life, Animated
Directed by Roger Ross Williams
Rated PG
