I actually had a conversation with a colleague some weeks ago about the movie, Rain Man, a thoughtful drama from thirty years ago that helped catapult widespread interest in the subject of autism and neurodivergence. We took a mutual delight in how the film opened doors and allowed for greater in-depth study for an underrepresented segment of the community ... while also acknowledging that, having now opened those very doors, it is easy to see where Rain Man's representation couldn't help but distort and sensationalize the community it aimed to champion. And I now want to find this guy again and see what he has to say about Tony Goldwyn's new movie, Ezra.
The movie sees standup comedian and divorced dad, Max (Bobby Cannavale), at a crossroads with how to raise his autistic son, the titular Ezra (William Fitzgerald), with his ex-wife, Jenna (Rose Byrne). As Jenna pushes to give Ezra more specialized attention, like pulling him out of public school, Max takes greater lengths to keep himself at the head of Ezra's life, culminating in taking him an a cross-country excursion to finally book the gig that will launch Max into the big leagues. It's a journey that has Max reconcile his own upbringing with his own father (Robert de Niro), one which has him wrestle with what it truly means to be a parent to a child with special needs.
From what little I have researched of this movie, it seems like there was a lot of effort to represent the autistic community with consideration and dignity. The script reportedly came from writer Tony Spiridakis's own experience raising an autistic son, and the film went to all the necessary lengths to cast a performer on the spectrum for the titular role. There are certainly ivy-leaguers out there who can speak to this with more specificity, but what I can say is that at least from an entry-level perspective, the depiction certainly felt thoughtful.
Where the film begs our indulgence is in the plot escalations. In order to give the father-son roadtrip more charge, for example, the film orchestrates a restraining order for Max. See, early on Max lashes out at a medical professional during a heated conversation about placing Ezra on extra medication. The doctor makes a below-the-belt comment about Max's parenting that you believe he would privately make to his private self, but I suppose the film wants us to imagine that this is the guy's first day dealing with patients. Story beats like these bend human psychology just a little in order to manufacture extra stakes for the film, which themselves end up being inconsistently applied. By the end of the film, there's an Amber alert out for Max and Ezra, and the film can't really make up its mind about when this is actually an obstacle for our main characters.
That said, the film doesn't squander the audience's investment, and in between the plot swells, the film finds a resting pace that feel natural, inviting, and even pleasant.
Because this is largely a film about Mommy and Daddy learning to get along, there are moments where it almost feels like the title character has disappeared from his own movie, even as he is onscreen for about 80% of the runtime. Yet the movie finds clever ways to covertly put Ezra in the driver's seat. A few highlight segments with Ezra take on his perspective, which you see reflected in some of the titled close-ups which feel jarring at first but, after a moment, let you delight in such an offbeat vantage point.
But again, this is mostly a story about Dad. Without explicitly drawing out the comparison through dialogue, the film likens Max's own state of arrested development to his son's supposed incompatibility with the real world, and this helps highlight both the proximity between father and son and also the urgency Max feels: if he can just give Ezra the life he deserves, maybe he will naturally become the man he needs to be! (Or perhaps, the reverse of that!) In this way, the film is almost more about Max's "condition" than Ezra's, and Bobby Cannavale does a fantastic job at keeping Max's heartbeat in view just often enough that we never lose track of what Max is chasing while also not using sympathy as a crutch.
It's to the movie's credit that it extends this same charitable eye to all the invested parties. Rose Byrne's Jenna technically functions in the role of the antagonist to Max, but the film still couches all her perfectly valid insecurities with the natural concerns of a mother who has every right to be as stressed as she is, and the audience never comes off unduly frustrated with her, certainly never more than Max.
If there is one major player who does test the viewer, it's actually in the role that director Tony Goldwyn plays himself, that of Bruce, Jenna's new boyfriend who feels like was specifically engineered by Jenna to be Max's total opposite. While Bruce maintains that baseline level of human decency--we aren't left wondering what on earth she's supposed to see in this guy--he is the least sympathetic to Max's situation, and he even makes a throwaway joke about using his lawyer privileges to "get rid of him" for Jenna.
That the film's storyteller chooses to situate himself in someone so critical of the story's protagonist feels like a deliberate call out to the unsympathetic audience: yes, this character is flawed, this situation is flawed, but even if you enter the story with the least possible degree of sympathy, love and understanding are the most powerful players here.
--The Professor
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