Autism movie review: The Boy Who Could Fly
Written on 22nd Jun 2020 by Alex Lowery
The first mainstream representation of autism in a Holywood blockbuster was Rain Man from 1988. I did a review of Rain Man where I spoke about its portrayal of autism. You can view that video in the link below.
There was an autism-related film released only 2 years before Rain Man called ‘The Boy who could fly’. It was very different from Rain Man and definitely not a good representation of autism. However, the film is really lacking because the autistic boy isn’t really given a whole of traits that really stand out. He’s mute at the beginning, struggles to learn and has been shown to get violent but that’s really it.
There aren’t as many layers to the character as Raymond Babbitt. The way he suddenly learned to talk at the end was rather unrealistic and not representative of autism. Don’t get me wrong: many autistic people do learn to talk later than others including myself. However, this boy was in his teens and to learn to speak in your teens is very unlikely. Of course, it is possible the boy actually could talk right from the start but was selectively mute. However, the film doesn’t really explain this so there is a possibility it could give false hope to parents.
Another thing about this film is the editing. In Rain Man, the editing is perfect and makes us feel like we’re in Raymond’s world. The editing in ‘The Boy Who Could Fly’ does not do this. The editing isn’t bad but it’s very standard. The scenes have the shots you’d expect to see like the close-up shot, wide-angle shot, mid-shot, etc but they’re never used as effectively and psychologically as the wide variety of shots you’ll find in Rain Man. You can see a trailer to the film in the link below.
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Not only is this boy mute, he’s completely SILENT. I’ve never met an autistic person who is silent all the time, even if they were nonverbal. Nonverbal people still will cry out in pain, laugh, and do audible stims like humming. This kid? Until the end, you’d think he didn’t have vocal chords.