Claire Danes undergoes an impressive transformation to become the aggressively shy and curious, passionate, compassionate, amazing mind of Temple Grandin, the protagonist of this story.
She is a young student with Aspurgers syndrome and an interest in cows.
She has the mind of an engineer, but she also understands animals. From an early stage, she applies her attention to solving the problem of a badly designed cattle slaughter process. This is a world dominated by men, so it takes that much more tenacity to break down the barriers.
She has tenacity, as well as inginuity, confidence in her skills and in her thinking: sophistication, thoroughness, creativity and boldness.
Here is another film that utilises flashbacks to tell the story, but I feel here they elevate the structure of the film, rather than just showing off.
Temple is an expert at thinking things through and from all angles - she thinks visually and has an extraordinary imagination and spatial intelligence - which she constantly puts to use at breaking down the problems she faces in her areas of interest.
Though it does take her some time to turn these skills to benefit herself and her state of mind, to tackle the problem of her mental difficulties.
She adjusts quickly to a new way of life on the ranch, but she benefits from a friendship of sorts with the animals. They calm her.
Temple suffers violent panic attacks when something disrupts her cautious system of familiar methods for functioning socially. But with her family support and the support of some friends, she develops coping mechanisms.
Each phase of her life is another challenge. Her journey is inspiring. It's a tough struggle, especially with the harsh judgements of cruel bullies. She most of the time brushes them off and focuses on the road ahead.
She manages her life and her disability - knowing that she will never be cured, but can still be happy and successful.
Temple approaches many of the handyman jobs around the ranch with confidence and excellent competency. While on the ranch, she has another panic attack and she decides to use a cow-calming device to calm herself - unorthodox but it seems to work.
Later, in college she builds her own person-calming device based on the cow-calming device. A hugger. Unfortunately this meets with disapproval from the therapist on staff and persecution from the faculty, until her family convince them to let her prove herself as a student.
School is tough for her as young people lack self control - cruelty can be an instinctive reaction to someone or something different. They attack what they don't understand.
The real world is full of kind souls, even in a male dominated field. Temple, early on, is able to prove that the way her mind works is an asset, despite difficulty fitting in and at times, functioning in ordinary society. Although by the end of the film we find an incredibly accomplished, professional, extraordinary and confident woman.
3.5 stars
No comments:
Post a Comment