Posted in
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Claire Danes
David Strathairn
Julia Ormond
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Genre
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Autism
Biopic
Drama
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Media
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DVD
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Studio | Hbo Home Video | ||
Language | English | ||
Subtitles | English | ||
Subtitles | French | ||
Subtitles | Spanish | ||
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Reviewer
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Anna
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Description
Temple Grandin is best known for her contribution to autism awareness and also for bringing ethics into the livestock industry.
Grandin was born in 1947 and by 1950 was diagnosed as autistic. At that time, autism was seen as a psychiatric illness and was usually believed to be caused by a cold and distant mother. Parents were generally advised to have their child put into an institution. Fortunately for Grandin, her parents ignored the advice and she enjoyed a good nursery education. Her parent's were able to afford a nanny to play intensively with her so her early years were enriched and probably mirrored much of best practise today. Her middle and senior years were unhappy as she was misunderstood and greatly bullied in her schools. She was later to attend a boarding school for the gifted where her true talents were appreciated and nurtured, enabling her to attend university and achieve a degree in psychology and a doctorate in animal science. She is now a Professor at Colarado State university and probably one of the best known designers and inventors of humane animal handling equipment.
Grandin enjoys horse riding, sci-fi films and biochemistry and continues to find socialising a bore!
Review
‘Temple Grandin' is a biographical film which largely focuses on her life and the effect that autism had on her. It does not really cover how it affected her family and significant others. This film captures her personality and belief in humane livestock husbandry. ?The actress, Claire Dane brilliantly captured the nuances of her speech and her determined and dogged spirit. It is a very watchable film and highlights the many obstacles that society places in the way of neuro-atypicals.
After a happy few early years, Temple Grandin endured a childhood of struggle and ridicule which was mercifully interspersed by the occasional person with compassion and insight, able to see beyond her eccentric behaviour. These individuals enabled her to salvage her life and to find meaning and purpose, something which is all too often denied to anyone unable to conform.
Temple Grandin is a visual thinker and has a visual memory and the film shows how this affected her ability to understand everyday language but also how it enhanced her abilities in many other areas. It is these abilities that she used to understand cattle who are also visual thinkers. Grandin observed the different sounds cows made and quickly differentiated between contented and frightened and was able to see the physical world through their eyes. She observed that they were happiest when moving in circles and would calm down when held firmly by a special container. These observations led her to design handling equipment and also a special box which she used to calm herself.
It was her science teacher at her last school who immediately realised that Grandin was something quite special He helped her to gain confidence and develop her area of aptitude and to realise that she could enjoy a career which encompassed the things she loved to do. As a result, she grew in confidence and later earned huge respect from others who, because of her talent, wanted to mix with her and were willing to accommodate her difference
The film documents what a struggle she had to be taken seriously as a woman. Her autism and sometimes rather inept communication style was an additional obstacle. Through persistence and some lucky breaks she eventually got the opportunity to pitch her ideas and once she focused on the financial benefits to the farmer rather than the humanity of her systems, her ideas were taken seriously. The film to me highlights why we must all learn to see beyond the social awkwardness, otherwise society will lose a lot of ingenuity.
The film is also a useful educational tool as it helps to demonstrate and explain the communication problems and sensory problems and what confuses and overwhelms as well as what calms and excites.
This is a feel good movie with many a lesson to take away. Difference in people can be good. It allows problems in the world to be inspected from a different, fresh angle, often seeing something that no one else could see. Temple Grandin because of her autism brought humanity into the world of husbandry and in her own words ‘nature is cruel but we don't have to be'
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