Autism: The Musical

I'm intrigued by Autism: The Musical, which premieres Tuesday on HBO. Because it's HBO, you can already pre-order the DVD if you're like me and you don't have cable even though you want HBO so bad you get a slight metallic taste in your mouth just thinking about it.

Or you can watch it at HBO.com in its entirety between March 26 and March 31, which to me seems an eminently sensible proposition. HBO is making a good-faith effort to distribute its innovative programming innovatively. (While we're at it, thanks also for supporting the feature documentary format.)

More on the film (and why it matters) after the jump.

The film follows the families of the Miracle Project, a theater group for children with a founded by Elaine Hall. Hall says she wants to "shatter...the myths of what a child with autism can do."

It's got a musical production, and that is documentary gold.

Moreover, the clips (one of which was broken at MamaPop Press Time) and reviews suggest a candid perspective on the lives of five families within the project. Their struggles do not seem sugar-coated, and there is due consideration of the autism puzzle: the mystery of its causes, the astonishing increase in diagnoses, the complexities of meeting a child's special needs in school and with peers, and caregiving burnout.

Comments

[hannahb]

I saw A:TM last fall at the Virginia Film Festival and thought it was great -- poignant and truthful without being schmaltzy. Though I don't know any parents of autistic children, it seemed like a pretty balanced portrayal of the difficulties of raising children with such immense needs. Celebrity bonus: one of the cast members is Stephen Stills, from Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.

[DianaCLT]

Stephen Still has a child with Autism, also? I know Neil Young does - pretty crazy that 1/2 the band does!

[Autism Miracle]

Hi, Its Autism is a developmental disorder and the specific cause for autism is not known. It is believed that some biochemical imbalance would have caused autism....!!!