Day 31: Life, Animated

At the halfway point on our journey of new and different, we indulged in a variation on an old favorite, going out to the movies. Since meeting Ellaine, we have watched more movies than any other point in my life (except maybe the period I lived with Joel who was on a quest to create his own Netflix library in DVD format).

Now, "How can this be new?" you ask.  As we have already been to the movies in our pajamas and watched a classic movie just this month, you might be a little skeptical. In all of our cinematic adventures, neither one of us have been to a limited release movie (what's that?). We did not actively seek out this adventure, instead it happened quite on accident.

I love Ellaine more than anything else in this world, and am lucky that she loves me back. Something that I have always loved about Ellaine is that she takes such an active interest in my job and my interests. While I love hearing about her days and different types of treatments she has learned over the years, there are fewer examples of "SLP things" in the world compared to engineering. Watching the news one day, I heard about a movie that got permission from Disney to include footage from their animated films followed by a quick piece on the movie itself. Life, Animated told the story of a boy who stopped talking at age two, and was diagnosed with Autism. For years, he only spoke in jibberish until he was able to use lines from Disney films to communicate with his family.

"Oh my gosh," I thought, "Ellaine would love this!" So I went and found the movie's web site to figure out when it was being released. Unfortunately, it wasn't coming out for a few weeks and even worse, it was only being released in a few theaters (even worse than that, it was only playing on certain dates. This happened to not be true, but it definitely amplified the problem of logistics in my mind). So I put a mystery date on our calendars for a month out and figured we could work out the details from there.

Walt, older brother
of the main protagonist Owen

When the night finally arrived, we went out to a nice dinner together and caught an Uber over to the theater. We did not know what to expect when we sat down in this tiny theater in Kendall Square. What we found was a deeply touching movie that brought out some deep emotions. We watched as a family struggled with watching their son disappear and how to hang onto some sort of normalcy. We watched the joys and frustrations that little steps in a child's treatment could bring to a family. I especially related to Walt, the big brother who wants nothing more than to protect his little brother. Halfway through the film, Ellaine excitedly tapped me when Michelle Garcia Winner showed up in a scene. Her pioneering techniques in Autism treatment are the same ones Ellaine uses in her own sessions.

The film was touching and very thoughtfully done. We watched as Owen, the subject of the film, journeyed through life. His struggles with understanding the world around him, finding love in his girlfriend Emily, dealing with loss when they broke up, and figuring out how he was going to survive in the world on his own.

The coolest part of the whole night was that the family came out to answer questions about the movie and their journey. We caught up with them outside of the theater to ask for a picture (to go with this blog). Owen had a big night and had to step outside, but Walt was especially kind and got one with both of us with his dad snapping the actual shot.

It was truly an awesome experience and I am so glad that I got to learn more about Ellaine's world. Thank you Walt for the picture and thank you Suskinds for sharing your story.