Temple Grandin

Some time ago, I wrote about my eldest son, who has a kind of high-level autism called Asperger Syndrome. Upon reading those words, a friend recommended Temple Grandin, an HBO biopic about a woman whose autism gave her the ability to become one of the world’s foremost experts on animal husbandry and an internationally known authority on both ranching and autism. I loved every minute of it.

Claire Danes plays the titular Temple Grandin, a young woman who grew up so wildly different that many of her earliest memories centered on her status as an outsider and a misfit, someone clearly brighter than those around her yet unable to cope with the everyday demands of social interaction. I’ve seen Ms. Danes in a number of roles, and nothing I’ve seen her do prepared me for this. She plays Temple Grandin like someone who really gets autism, who understands the subtleties of understanding that lurk behind the somewhat clumsy autistic exterior.

The adults in her early life include Julia Ormond as the strong-willed mother who refuses to institutionalize her deeply challenged little girl; Catherine O’Hara as the aunt who changes Temple’s life by inviting her to her Tuscon ranch one summer; and David Strathairn as the high school science teacher who not only sees past Temple’s social and communications handicaps and perceives her amazing gifts of memory, calculation, and perception, but figures out how to unleash them. These are actors we know and like, and I bought them in their roles.

Ok, HBO hires good actors – we already knew that. The great thing about Temple Grandin is Grandin herself. This is an amazing woman who inspires not through her fearlessness, but through the remarkable strength she brings to overcoming her fears. Doors scare her, so she came up with a mantra to help her pass through them. She doesn’t like to be touched, so she came up with another way to get the comfort of a hug. She can’t intuit appropriate behaviors, so she learned appropriate (enough) actions for most social situations.

This is neat, neat stuff. I’m going to recommend it to the parents of autistic kids with whom my wife and I meet. I’m recommending it to you, as well. Temple Grandin will enlighten you. It’ll entertain you. It’ll make you want to be a better person. What more could you ask from a movie?
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Addendum: I just read this on Wikipedia. “At the 62nd Primetime Emmy Awards, the film, nominated in 15 Emmy categories, received five awards, including Outstanding Made for Television Movie and Best Actress in a Drama for Danes. Grandin was on stage as the award was accepted, and spoke briefly on the microphone to the audience. Coincidentally, the 2010 Emmy Awards happened on Grandin's birthday.”  Now, how cool is that?