"Music" the movie - non-verbal autistic character
I saw this movie yesterday.
(Apologies if you're not able to attend cinemas due to covid, I'm not sure if you can do that in your respective countries, no intent to be insensitive).
Anyway, when the trailer came out, Sia faced a lot of criticism over casting a non-autistic girl in the title role of a non-verbal autistic.
Having seen the movie I can understand why she did that.
There are musical set-pieces throughout, the first of which is in the imagination of the girl as being freed from the way autism/dyspraxia affects her movements - so it's a dance role at odds with the behaviour presented in the rest of the movie. I'm not sure an autistic actor who fitted the one role would be able to do the other.
I actually thought the girl who played Music did a good job in getting into character.
I don't really expect anyone to agree with me, feel free to argue.
We can see movies in the county next to mine (most theaters still closed though)...but not in my county
Anybody who can convey well the thoughts and feelings of a nonverbal autistic person—should get the role.
It would be nice, though, if an actual nonverbal autistic person would get these sorts of roles. Being nonverbal does not preclude being an actor who is able to follow a director’s instructions from fulfilling the role. But finding such a person might prove difficult.
Yeah.
In general, I'm in favour of casting autistic actors in autistic roles. For instance, it never sat well with me the casting of Freddie Highmore in The Good Doctor. Apparently the Korean original cast an autistic actor and that worked.
But when I look at the role of "Music", it seems like even an autistic actor, if they were unimpaired enough to do the dance scenes, would be "acting more impaired" for the other scenes. So it's maybe a bit hypocritical to insist the actor must be autistic - at the end of the day it has to be the person best able to play the role. And the girl who played the role actually did a great job, in my view.
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