Life, Animated

Overview

Did you wear out many VHS tapes re-watching your favourite movies as a kid? Don't worry, you're not alone. There's a type of fanatical viewing that comes with childhood, as we immerse ourselves again and again in the stories that we love most. For Owen Suskind, however, this rite-of-passage ran even deeper. Diagnosed with autism at the age of three, Owen threw himself into Disney flicks. For him, they weren't just entertainment. They were a way of learning how to process the world.

That's the real world narrative that Life, Animated explores — and the heart-warming details are worthy of an animated musical. When the documentary begins, Owen is 23 and getting ready to leave home, an achievement that family members credit to his singular obsession. As he grew up, titles such as The Little Mermaid, Aladdin and Peter Pan helped him understand those around him, giving him the tools he needed to forge a life of his own.

Taking his cues from the best-selling book by Owen's father Ron, Oscar-winning director Roger Ross Williams (short documentary Music by Prudence) recounts this moving story, combining home video with new footage in order to chronicle both Owen's childhood and his big move into his own assisted-living apartment. As the film unfolds, Ron and his wife Cornelia step through their two-decade journey, while Owen offers his own thoughts on his favourite films and the role they played in his coming-of-age.

Unfortunately, while there's plenty of emotion to be felt here, Williams doesn't trust the audience to feel it on their own. His filmmaking tactics are as heavy-handed as they are steeped in easy emotion, and as repetitive as Owen's own viewing habits. Not only that, but by including countless moments from the movies that Owen loves, Williams trades far too heavily on viewer nostalgia, rather than actually focusing on the true tale he's meant to be telling. As a result, Life, Animated also struggles with tone, wavering between compassionate and self-congratulatory.

Interestingly, the documentary's most effective sections aren't the interviews or Disney clips, but animated recreations of the Suskinds' lives provided by artist Mac Guff. These moments convey the underlying sentiment with much more subtlety than you'll find elsewhere. A cautious comment by Owen's older brother Walter, worried about someday having to take responsibility for his sibling's care, also stands out. As magical as Mickey Mouse's output may be, reality still leaves a stronger impression.