User Reviews

I thought this film was really quite moving. Its quite emotional but in a perhaps subtle way. I found it very interesting how Alex reacted after the accident, his feelings of grief and guilt and his clear concern and compassion for Vivienne's mother, Linda. I think I found it especially interesting as the two main characters, while they do slowly open up to each other, bit by bit, they also clearly keep their guard up, certainly at first and Alex comes across as a particularly intriguing, almost a black sheep sort of a person. There definitely felt, to me anyway, that there was a strong mystery element to this film and I felt intrigued to discover more about both Alex and Linda's backgrounds, their history. Of course there is more to them than may first appear, although it is a fairly slow paced film in general but I found myself surprised by some of the insights I slowly discovered about the characters, about what potentially made them the way they were (perhaps moreso Alex than Linda). I felt it covered some important moral ground, including how we express grief and the grieving process, guilt and forgiveness, cultural or/and societal expectations of such. I felt Alex was quite a complicated person, a reserved but quite compassionate person, with many of his own issues and I found the character development quite good. Obviously Linda is also a complicated person, although with her autism you could say that she comes across as much more simple way (I genuinely don't mean that in an offensive or degrading/demeaning sense, I mean it moreso in a say what you really think , or how you really feel, kind of a way). Ot seemed to me that Linda came across as somehow more self assured, while also being quite shy and insecure (understandably so), she can seem pretty headstrong and even defiant, in her own way. I felt that the dialogue was particularly good. The characters are well developed and in general the script seemed to be very well thought out - it isn't jam packed with cliches, neither did it feel especially predictable. I felt this film worked so well as the characters were very well portrayed and the script seemed to be well thought out. The topics are covered quite sensitively and I thought it was quite thought provoking. Cast wise, the late Alan Rickman plays Alex and he plays him very well, appearing as (like I say) a very guarded and reserved person but ultimately quite a sensitive person. The raw feelings both Alex and Linda clearly (to me anyway) seemed to carry around came across quite clearly. Linda is played by Sigourney Weaver and I felt she also did particularly well in her role, portraying the childhood innocence aspect of Linda via her autism. I felt that Sigourney played her role with a good amount of dignity, her facial expressions seeming quite genuine and not offensive, if that makes any sense? lets say I didn't get the feeling that the cast were doing a basic roughshod job of playing the complicated characters they undoubtedly were and I appreciated and respected that. I'd also like to mention, cast wise, that Emily Hampshire portrays Vivienne Freeman, who obviously doesn't have a great amount of screen time but I felt that she made her mark, as an actor portraying an important character, as Vivienne seems a very lively, vivid and independent young woman who is fairly memorable in her own way. If there are to be any criticisms made about this film, I think all I could perhaps say is that there is a romance related side story which perhaps wasn't entirely necessary and also that the ending was maybe a little Hollywood? although there are some plot twists present which took me by surprise. To sum up, I felt this was a very well made film, which covered some sensitive ground in a good way. It features some interesting characters and there are some plot twists which took me by surprise - the character development and casting is very good and it was, for me, quite a memorable film, so personally I'd give it a 5 star rating, although I realise that there are one or two aspects that may put others off a little (or may disappoint some), so I'll go with a 4 star rating and a strong recommendation (see next section) instead. Also, just to add that for anyone curious about the film title, its meaning is explained during the film. I won't add anymore so as not to spoil it.

Not the most significant movie dealing with the issue of autism, since it lacks the screenplay originality and power, but Sigourney Weawer is excellent as always.