Far From The Tree - Documentry

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What does a gifted author do after he has spent 10 years writing a masterpiece, winning over 50 awards, in this case Far From The Tree (FFTT)? He doesn’t, probably cannot, stop there, and we are the beneficiaries.

FFTT, the book, was vast in its coverage, introducing us to people who are deaf, dwarfs, with Down Syndrome, autism, schizophrenia, prodigies, children of rape, children who commit violent crimes, transgender individuals and those affected by a disability (including those with developmental delays and disabilities, once called mental retardation). The scope of the inquiry in Dr. Solomon’s book was so broad that short of a giving us a full day at the movies he and Rachel Dretzin (producer and director) had to narrow their selection of stories, while still amply illustrating the essential nature of parental - and family

FFTT, the film, gives us intimate and heartening views of people with Down syndrome, autism, of dwarfs, and the family of an 18-year-old boy now imprisoned for life for the murder an 8-year-old boy. And of Andrew Solomon, gay in a family that could not at first accept him. These stories are about the identity of those we meet rather than any illness, disability or sexual disposition.

Jack was a prototypical infant until autism took over his central nervous system at the age of about 2. He became another child - distant, hypermotoric, given to tantrums, non-verbal, and unable to be with other children - effectively taking the boy they had known away from his parents.

In FFTT, we have a documentary film that shows how difference can fashion identity, often a defective one that derives from narrow, biased individual and social perspectives - when we overly value the conventional and the commonplace. Through this film, we follow the lives of people who are different, and their families; these drive the documentary’s narrative and capture our hearts. We witness the demands upon families with a truly different child.