Mozart and the Whale + Mary and Max

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I just watched Mozart and the Whale last night, along with Mary and Max. Can anyone please let me know if you felt that these characters were fair representations of people with Asperger's? I came off feeling that many of the characters' symptoms were exaggerated stereotypes/caricatures and/or drew attention to themselves for the sake of portraying the more extreme cases which left me feeling they didn't do much better at showing the wide range of people with Asperger's any more than Rain Man did to those on the wider autistic spectrum. I found myself watching the movies thinking, "I can't relate to this" and wondering Holy Sh*t, maybe I don't have AS after all and maybe my kids don't have PDD either(!) I did love Mary and Max despite this, but did not feel like I could relate except in the remotest sense.

I saw that film. Although it was entertaining and I think the premise was alright, I think you're right in that it skews and exaggerates select characteristics. (Granted, it's far better than Rainman)!

I realise the filmmakers were not trying to make a documentary, but instead a light-hearted rendition. I do not know that big red-headed lady's name, but I thought her character especially was really over-the-top! She was just weird. I doubt any Aspie is overtly like that. Some of the aspects I thought were right on target, like the guy in the communal kitchen intensely watching the microwave countdown. I guess maybe take it 'with a grain of salt', yes? I hope viewers who are not familiar with AS understand the film, which is a romantic drama/comedy, is for entertainment rather than being diagnostically informative.

I've tried to explain to my brother that movies like those, as well as Snow Cake and Adam, are atypical of most aspies and that Hollywood prefers "over the top" caricatures instead of subtle ones. Yes, the Hollywood image taints those of us who are not as extreme as the depicted ones. In fact, they probably give most of us a bad name. "You can't be an aspie," someone would say, "because you don't behave like those guys. You don't even behave like Dr. Sheldon Cooper or Dr. Spencer Reid. They're math geniuses, you're not!"

<--- Shrugs

I'm probably going to be shot down for this, but I liked Motzart and the Whale, and thought it pretty accurate. On the other hand, I didn't much care for Mary and Max, and Rainman is certainly over the top.

Don't forget Jerry, the lawyer, in Boston Legal.

HereBeDragons -- I'm with ya -- I thought Mozart and the Whale was a fairly good representation, although exaggerated at times.

Two of the best movies that didn't seem too exaggerated to me (most media exaggerates Aspergers tendencies, for storyline and effect) were Adam and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close. That is to say that not ALL people with aspergers are like these characters, but there are elements that most people with aspergers can relate to in these films.

i saw Mozart and the Whale, and i could relate pretty well to both characters. some of the characters in the group were a lot like aspies/auties and others i have known in real life, too. i have seen Snow Cake and Adam as well, and i felt like i understood the character quite a lot, though the woman in Snow Cake was more severe than me. i sometimes think that the WrongPlanet membership is largely (but not entirely) composed of people who are more mild than the aspies i have known in real life.

i have not seen Mary + Max.

M&W I thought it was pretty good. Better than I would have expected. Yes it's a bit of an exageration but hardly the worst example.

Mozart and the whale, it was a good movie, heart warming.

I enjoyed Mozart and the Whale, and felt kinship with the two main characters. I too am in an Aspie / Aspie marriage. Plus, it was just a great indie flick.

Adam I felt was over the top. Hated the ending.

Mozart and the Whale, I liked how they made Isabelle normal and it shows aspies can be outgoing and do eye contact and appear normal. I would say she was the mildest on the spectrum. But Mary in real life is more effected by her AS than Isabelle was in the movie. She was also very talkative and that is me and I am outgoing when I want to be and if I feel comfortable.

I thought Linda in Snow Cake also suffered OCD because of the way she had her house and I was the same way about my home when I was in my teens and a kid. I never had a fear of touching trash bags. You just wash your hands. I have flipped out over a dog peeing on the carpet in the basement but I didn't do it the way Linda did it. She was freaking out about it like it was the end of the world while I just got upset and cried about it as if a kid messed up my dollhouse or something I made.


I thought Adam was too stereotyped and so was Max. But unfortunately there are aspies out there who are that textbook and it's rare I would say. I believe Max was based on a real person so I would assume that person was exactly like Max. Some people have wondered if Mary had it too but I think she was supposed to be shy and have depression due to a dysfunctional household she lived in. I did cry at the end when max gets mad at Mary after she wrote her book and I think her saying someday they will find a cure is what upset him so she destroyed her books. then the friendship went downhill from there and Mary turns into a drinker or a drug addict, I don't remember which. Then he forgives her and that made me happy and he gave her his collection. I think he did that because he knew his time was coming to an end and he wanted to give them away to someone special so he forgave her and gave them to her.


If Kim Peek wasn't autistic, would that mean Rain Man was misdiagnosed too?


I find it easier if you make a movie based on someone with it, it won't be too stereotyped but people still won't be happy with it. Mozart and the Whale is an example of it. Even the actors felt the same way too about their characters. That one girl who talked loud, I talk loud but not like that and Mom told me I do that sometimes.

I saw Mary and Max a few months ago and Mozart and the Whale over the weekend.

I found both stories difficult to watch--I had to shut off Mozart and the Whale a few times because I was involved in the story and the characters and found the sympathetic (or is it vicarious?) stress too intense.

The style of the animation on Mary and Max seemed horribly ugly to me, and this tainted my sense of the world-view of the film. Ugly. The narrator seemed condescending and at times made me angry. There was a certain amount of "good natured" ridicule in the description of both characters and a general all-knowing superiority. I didn't like that at all. There was a lot else that seemed wrong with the movie, but I don't like to revisit it because it is just as ugly replayed in my mind's eye as it was on Netflix.

By contrast, I liked the overall style of Mozart and the Whale. Some of the editing was a little forced and I thought the floaty numbers thing was a visualization of the words not created by a person who knows math. Where was the geometry? I thought they forced a few details in and some of the secondary characters were paper-thin--the compulsively food-stealing black guy, for example, who was he? What were his interests? The intrusive loud woman and the always-smiling woman also seemed terribly thin, though I liked the moment when the smile was shown as indicative of nothing--when she was smiling though very upset.

As a person with an interest in weather, I found the weather comments from the guy with the hat and the interest in weather unrealistic. He seemed to be pretending to have an interest in the weather rather than really being into it. The actor should have done more study for that character! I liked the writer/friend and the scenes in the laundry and the restaurant.

I liked both lead characters and though I did think some of their displays of symptoms were a bit forced, they were basically good. I wanted things to work out for them. I was distressed for both of them when things went badly, so much so that I had to pause the movie and do something else for a while and then come back to it. I identified with them in a way that made me depressed and uncomfortable, but I think of this as praise for the movie not a criticism.

FYI someone put Mozart and the Whale on Youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Jw75S_tcp4