Ben Affleck as a badass autistic accountant

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This movie looks really good.

The Accountant Trailer: Ben Affleck is an Expert at Math & Killing

We just need to continue the conversation.

For example, yes, sometimes sensory issues are kind of neat, but usually they're a big pain in the ass!

This kind of thing.

It might end up doing that. Usually movies take one of two approaches: explicitly make it about autism and show it as a burden, the character a prop, and he overcomes by becoming more normal (less autistic), or, if they show the positive aspects by making the character have autistic traits that make him into a cool and quirky genius - but they don't actually address these as traits of autism.

But the Accountant looks like it has both elements - shows the burden and difficulty as a child, and explicitly addresses the autism, but then instead of becoming cured, he channels his autistic traits and thus takes charge of his own fate. So to me, that is the opposite of a caricature - it shows the full range. I also like the sort of "tagline" in the trailer: "define normal"

I hope it makes people have a better perspective on autism by showing both how difficult it is, but also how cool a character can be not just in spite of but because of it -- rather than pitied or looked as "less than" from it.

They refer to him as **Christian Wolff (Affleck) is a math savant with more affinity for numbers than people.**

It seems like they are marketing the film in a particular way? downplaying the word "autism"

We will have a better idea as we get closer to the opening but if they are trying to downplay autism it is not working as the early descriptions are mentioning autism. IMHO this is dual marketing math savant for the general population, strategically placed reviews mentioning autism and maybe later the writers and actors mentioning Autistic "inspiration" for those knowlegable as has been done for a decade now.

‘The Accountant': Ben Affleck on Playing an Autistic Hero in Gavin O’Connor’s Thriller

How assassin-on-the-spectrum thriller 'The Accountant' approached depicting autism honestly

So, in about three years, Hollywood will release Jason Bourne v. Christian Wolff? Together again.

The brief Fox Television series, Touch, featured an autistic-ish boy who, with the help of his father (who refused to accept his son's autism), traveled the world to solve a doomsday scenario. It displayed violence, too, but the autistic boy was never violent. So, are we to believe that Wolff's world-class proficiency in firearms is merely a special interest? I can see that. Several years ago, firearms and the Second Amendment were a minor special interest of mine. Now, not so much. It is more of a special knowledge.

I'm hopeful but skeptical... i've just seen too many movies about autistic that came off as unrealistic or condescending. I'm very glad that Affleck put so much time into researching ASD, both with families and talking to AS men of his age. That makes me very hopeful -- a lot of these things give a character stereotypical autistic traits and then the actors and director state that they are not calling it autism because it would require them to be more scrupulously accurate (I'm looking at you, US's Big Bang Theory and UK's The Bridge). These guys usually have fairly normal lives but are socially awkward to the point of being comical. The result is a cardboard cutout, a clown, or freak. Sometimes they'll be the hero, like Sherlock, with an extremely patient NT friend to make sure they don't fall in a ditch or get shot. It's Amos and Andy for the 21st Century.

Then we'd have another kind of we-don't-want-to-call-it-autism kid with superpowers or at least a very amazing savant gift (Touch, Mercury Rising, The Boy Who Could Fly) -- we generally get little or no idea of what's going on in the super-autistic kid's, except that their profound disability is balanced by a magical gift and that they are in an angelic state of grace, as though the disabled have to justify their existence with some extraordinary ability. It's a kind of inspiration porn, in which the autistic character is mainly their to further the emotional development of the NT protagonist. This is more like Spike Lee's Magical Negro trope in Bagger Vance.

I though Asa Butterfield did a good job as Nathan Ellis in X+Y. Still pretty savant-y but at least more like a regular person. My only objection is that we never get to know the hero's thoughts and feelings, except through interaction with other characters. I liked the other autistic character, Luke, much better -- I could identify with his hopes, fears, dreams, anger, and ultimate confession of trying to be exceptional to justify his existence, but hating what he was doing. This was a much, much deeper character to me, more developed in just a few lines than the main character.

I'd love to see more Luke Sheltons or portrayals like Claire Dane's amazing Temple Grandin: real people, real character development, someone that even the most NT person can learn to understand.