Some clips from "Mozart And The Whale"!

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlOMimp9KDY


Enjoy!


-SpaceCase

These new youtube snapshots are quite (0.o)

They seemed more like low-functioning autistics than aspies if you ask me... I just can't really see how people on the higher end of the spectrum can relate to them. Actually, they scared me a bit...

The woman seemed a bit LFA yeah, but I donno about the guy. Have you ever met any low-functioning autistics? They probably stereotyped it for a better impact, meh dont they always do things like that in american movies?

Yeah, I helped out with a gym class that had about twenty of them. The people in "Mozart" (and especially the lady) seemed a lot like those kids in gym. Some of them were worse than her, but not all of them. And yeah, America is known for stereotyping. lol

I rented the DVD. My impressions:

I loved it. Yay. The script was nice, the direction MOSTLY decent, and the acting was better than I expected from Josh "The Plank" Harnet and Radha Mitchell (AKA the Silent Hill Woman--no wonder she's so screwed up in this movie after getting chased by Pyramid Head!). Not everything about the film is good, though. For one thing, there were a lot of sh***y POP SONGS. Ewwwww. Also, some of it was a little...off in its portrayal of people with AS. In some parts the characters seemed too "normal," and in others they seemed even more low-functioning than a lot of people with AS do. (Not all Aspies have a COMPLETE lack of mannerisms and politeness!) I also would have liked a little more emphasis on sensory defensiveness, which has been one of the most significant aspects of AS for me. And there was this REALLY stupid part involving a baboon. (You know what I mean if you've seen it.) But overall...it got it right. The way Donald (Harnet) is so confused and overcome by awkwardness, the way Isabelle (Mitchell) seems a little obsessed with sex. (Based on what I've read at this site, many female aspies are either asexual or practically nymphomaniacs. Seriously.) The pets thing is also true--many aspies can relate to animals better than they can relate to humans. (I don't talk to my dogs the way Donald talked to his birds, though.) Best of all, the immediate obsession with someone you've just met, combined with the utter lack of skills with phones--that is TOTALLY aspie. On another note, I find it difficult to call this a "romantic comedy"--"Mozart and the Whale" is really more of a drama. It's an often-frustrating film, because the characters are so irritatingly foolish, but I wouldn't have a film about aspies be any other way. If the characters didn't irritate the audience with their social buffoonery, it simply wouldn't be accurate. Overall, despite some brief moments of retardation (on the part of the writer, not the characters), this is definitely going on my list of favorites.

http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Whale-Wide ... UTF8&s=dvd

Oh, wow, you're the guy who the film was based on? Congradulations!! ^__^ (Touche on the baboon thing, too!)

I have to ask--what did you and your wife think of the film?

I couldn't relate to the characters very well, the only problems I had in social situations (Other than my extreme shyness and introversion) were when I was younger, and the sensory problems are less extreme, and those are the only things I could relate to in the characters.

Thought the movie was very enjoyable.
I have no time for the usual hollywood 'rom-coms' and was expecting to give up on this after 30 minutes. Well acted with some good dialogue: clearly wasn't a 'rom-com' as expected.

My major gripe was that i thought (until reading this thread), that characters such as Isabelle did not exist.
Where do i get one from ?

( I don't think i could handle one if they did. Good luck Whale.)

Some minor faults...

The supporting cast were great, well acted with good sharp dialogue providing some comedy.
However, they did seem more like carictures, used just for comic relief. Which made me feel somewhat like i was 'laughing at the freaks'. Not that i minded this ( they were very funny), but a sub-plot may have helped.

On the whole, it was a light-hearted film, (also good), but i think a change of gear was needed when dealing with the attempted suicide. This seemed to be glossed-over: 5 minutes later, all is well & we have the standard happy ending.

Anyway.. much better than crap like 'Hitch' and 'Sleepless In Seattle', but not a patch on 'Punch Drunk Love'.
( 'Chuck & Buck' is also good.)

I haven't been to this site for at least 6 months. However, I've had this movie on my netflix list all this time, and it finally got released to DVD, and I finally watched it tonight with my husband and daughter. After watching the movie, I wanted to see what the WP community thought of it, so here I am again (for the nonce) and since I'm here I'll share my thoughts:

1. It was GREAT to hear the word 'Aspergers' spoken out loud on film! That was so empowering, and I believe that many who see the movie by accident, i.e. who aren't on the spectrum, will want to learn more about it, or at the very least, the word will have been heard by them and the next time they hear it, they will already be familiar with it. To me that was the best thing about the movie.

2. My 18 year-old daughter kept saying how cute Josh Hartnett is. That's a good sign for the movie's appeal to female teenagers.

3. At one point I stopped the movie - the part where 'Donald' walks into his apartment after Isabelle has cleaned it - and the camera zooms in on all these different details - that blew my mind because that's pretty close to my visual perception!! ! So I got to explain and show them how the world often looks to me, and how overwhelming it can be when your visual brain has to process thousands of pieces of information PLUS manage to talk to a person - it was enlightening for them and it was really cool for me to see that portrayed visually in a movie. Kudos to the director and camarapeople for that!

4. I was disappointed by stereotypes. I do recognize, as someone above already pointed out, that portraying adults with AS would be too much like "normal" people, so that it is necessary to overdramatize, but it still made me cringe too much.