Every time I do something that other people wouldn't, it must make you wonder why
Continuing my trip up The Guardian's Top 50 Films of 2021
#39 : The Reason I Jump
This documentary inspired by the bestselling book of the same title is an empathic study of nonverbal autism that takes us into the world of young neurodivergent people across the world.
Another film I know nothing about - from the description above, I'm expecting a worthy and solid, if not exactly great film. Happy to be proved wrong though.
And well, it's an interesting snapshot into the lives of five young people with non-verbal (to varying degrees) autism and the routines/thoughts/hopes of their parents. The section on Jestina from Sierra Leone is quite heartbreaking at times with the talk of "the devil child" but, as Joss' Dad points out, it wasn't that long ago that exactly the same things went on over here - and the progress that Jestina's parents make is ultimately all the more hopeful as a result.
But - the problem with making a film about people with nonverbal autism is that (in some cases) they're unable to explain what they're experiencing. Yes, we've got the book to go on but personally, it feels potentially as invalid to apply the author's experience to any of the film's subjects as it would be to apply my experiences. However, the subject's parents say it helped them gain insight so I'm guessing I should probably defer to their greater experience. And we also have Emma and Ben who are friends from the US and whilst being non-verbal they communicate well through spelling against a letter chart so you get more of an "in" around their thought processes.
Towards the end of the film we start to think about what the future might hold and that ratchets up the emotional tension somewhat - no matter what challenges they face, how can you not have hopes and fears for your children? And obviously it's much harder for the film's subjects - even if they're possibly not aware of the challenges. But I think the film strikes a nice balance between realism and optimism - and who knows what the future will bring for any of us?
The film is beautifully shot with some fantastic locations popping up and it also does a good job at trying to make the "normal" not quite so normal, providing blurred or close-up shots or amplifying sounds. It also has a lovely lyrical narration featuring passages from the book which really make you think - I might search out the book because it feels more up my street.
So yeah, it's a solid and worthy film - inspiring and educational at times, but I don't think I'd describe it as great. Most of it merely reinforced my views beforehand that there's a lot of work involved and infinite amounts of patience required in dealing both with the children and society as a whole. As with everything, people can be wonderful and people can very much not wonderful but this film focusses more on the wonderfulness of being different and asks us to try and understand. And that's the least I can do is try, I guess.
At the time of writing, this film is available to rent on most of the usual channels - it's a diverting watch but probably not massively engaging for most.
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