‘Life, Animated’ shows autistic son relating to world through Disney cartoons

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

I’m not the world’s most patient man. Shame on me, for it quite often takes a lot of patience to be around me, what with my personality quirks, frequent outbursts of funny voices or song and general attention-hound personality. 

I have even been known to sing to animals. 

As a kid I didn’t have a lot of friends, so I would memorize cartoons and movies to then parrot back to myself during lengthy stretches of alone time — replete with the sound effects. As an adult, it’s a nifty party trick, especially after a stiff drink or three.

Recently I got a lesson in patience. I had the extraordinary pleasure to meet Owen Suskind, who was diagnosed with autism at age 3. Like many so afflicted, young Owen shut off from his family and his peers until that magical day when he began speaking in lines from Disney films, providing his family with a means to reach him.

Owen is now a young man with an easy smile, and is wholly unafflicted by self-seriousness. He and his New York family — father Ron, an award-winning journalist, mother Cornelia and brother Walter — were in the nation’s capital recently for AFI Docs fest, where their incredible story was shown in “Life, Animated.” The documentary, directed by Roger Ross Williams, follows this singularly wonderful family unit as they transition Owen from child into young adult.

As it should, animation plays a role in the film’s realization too.

When I saw the documentary ahead of AFI, I wrote that it shows Owen “more or less functionally relating to his parents and others as best he can — but almost certainly better than had he not been exposed to Disney films, which taught him to speak and come at least partially out of his shell.”

For all of the heaps of damnation tossed upon media, it still provided a way for a youth to find his voice.

Seated among the family — Owen to my right, with Ron, Cornelia and Walter across from me — what truly manifests is the love and genuine affection they have for Owen, and how, with years of practice, they have helped to bring his gentle soul out for the world to behold.

My good pal Ed once said that it takes “ninja-level” parenting to raise a child with special needs, and the Suskinds exhibit a Buddha-like helping of patience that never, ever borders on frustration or exasperation, as could reasonably be expected for anyone in their shoes.

Movie stars and filmmakers I’ve interviewed often exhibit a certain degree of distractibility. Without naming names, I have found that during one-on-ones, their attentions often wander and their gazes drift to various spots on the wall or floor. Part of this can be chalked up to the eccentric qualities of humanity that afflict the creative. But I always got answers, sooner or later.

With young Owen, I was wholly out of my element. Doing what I know how to do, I address questions to his parents and his brother first, and then to Owen himself. As often as not, Owen would remain silent until his parents gently goad him into response, at which point his face lights up and the gentility of his spirit shines through.

Little wonder. The Suskinds have had decades to refine their approach to their son; I had less than a half-hour.

They always smile, but never shy away from the reality of their situation.

“We have to prepare him for after we’re gone,” Cornelia says matter-of-factly of the challenges that await as she and her husband age, and the burden for Owen’s guidance will fall more and more on Walter’s shoulders.

There’s an extraordinarily poignant moment in “Life, Animated” where Ron — a lecturer and Pulitzer Prize-winning author who has written books critical of Bush administration policies, as well as the book that was the basis of the documentary about his family — admits that he has no idea how to even begin to broach the subject of teaching Owen about sex and mating.

Owen is seen in the film with a girlfriend for a while, but she then breaks up with him. He does not understand why. The anguish of such an experience for any adolescent is excruciating, but to behold Owen asking Ron “why, why?” while he calms himself by reciting Disney film lines is likely to be the most humanistic moment captured on film this year.

I ask Owen if he is dating anyone now. His sheepishness to respond perhaps could be chalked up to embarrassment as well as his characteristic reticence with strangers.

“O,” Ron said, “tell Eric your thoughts on dating right now.”

At this point Owen leans his head back against his chair’s headrest, smiles, closes his eyes and says, “I just want to be Owen” in a voice that seems to borrow from the inflections of Patrick Stewart.

When he does speak, Owen as often as not, elocutes in a stagey manner, with timbres of cartoon voices and those famous actors he loves accenting his words. The director Mr. Williams told me that he would prime Owen for interviews by placing before him a screen that would play Disney clips so that his subject would open up, essentially, Mr. Williams said, putting the viewer “inside the Disney films” — it is the key that serves to unlock his hero.

Near the end of the film, Owen gives a speech in Paris to a roomful of autistic individuals, where he even attempts a little French for the occasion. Ron tells me that his son also faced the challenge of learning some Hebrew for his bar mitzvah gamely.

Owen opens his book bag to show me what he carries with him on his trip to the District. He also has a sketchpad. Unsurprisingly, his doodles are of his favorite cartoon characters.

He also has books of perhaps more mature elements of pop culture.

His father then tells me of Owen’s affinity for the Batman universe. Owen likes both Michael Gough’s and Michael Caine’s interpretation of Bruce Wayne’s faithful butler, Alfred.

“Why do we fall, Master Wayne?” Owen says, channeling Mr. Caine.

“So that we can get back up,” I answer.

Owen says he has a passion for the old Warner Bros. cartoons, which I too grew up watching — and whose character voices I know all too well.

“It’s duck season,” I say.

“Rabbit season,” Owen immediately responds, beginning the classic reverse-psychology repartee between Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck that invariably ends with Bugs tricking Daffy to say “duck season” so that Elmer Fudd would then shoot him in the fact.

“Duck season!”

“Rabbit season!”

“Duck season!”

“Rabbit season!”

Owen and his family are now laughing genuinely. Owen’s spirit has come fully alive, and he bends sideways with laughter.

Ron tells me that Owen doesn’t get to trade cartoon voices with other people very often. I tell him the exact same fate has befallen me.

I get the distinct impression Owen and I could spend hours doing just this. It is as if two aliens have crossed paths mysteriously at this juncture.

My 30 minutes are up, and the Suskinds all shake my hands. Ron and Cornelia both thank me for my time, but it is I who should be offering grace for the appointment. Walter too is all smiles.

As the Suskinds head out for their next interview, I watch Owen clutching a book closely and once again off in his own little world where animals speak and sing. It is not difficult to imagine him on stage, or, better yet, in a studio recording booth someday making his cartoon voices.

It may be a fantasy realm, but it is fantasy that has helped bring young Owen into our reality — or rather, bring us into his.

“Life, Animated” opens Friday at the District’s Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema in Bethesda, Maryland.