A Few Thoughts on Big Neurodivergent Energy Stories: Theme Edition

*Spoilers for an assortment of BNE stories.*

I’ve loved all the common traits I’ve talked about so far for Big Neurodivergent Energy stories, and pretty much all of them contribute to my love for these stories. But I think today’s entries are the biggest key for me. It’s the themes that take them from stories I love to stories I need, the stories that sit inside me and warm my soul.

 

Found Family

This one’s maybe a bit obvious, but that’s okay. Found family dynamics aren’t exclusive to BNE stories, of course. But they’re such an important factor in many of them. Frequently, these are characters who haven’t belonged anywhere else, a ragtag band of disparate misfits who lovingly get on each other’s nerves and will defend each other to the death. We see it with ensembles, like Community, Our Flag Means Death, and Maya and the Three. We see it in smaller configurations too, a few characters who become one another’s everything. This relationship might have a romantic bent (more on that another day!), like we see with Elizabeth and Calvin in Lessons in Chemistry or Crowley and Aziraphale in Good Omens. But they can be more familial too: think Matilda and Miss Honey in Matilda, or my beloved Nimona and Ballister in Nimona. Whether a big group or just a duo, these found families make it safe for the characters to be who they are.

 

Broken But Worthy of Love

Some subscribe to the notion that, before someone is ready to love someone else, they need to learn to love themselves first. That they have to work on themselves, get their own house in order, and then they’ll be ready. But BNE stories don’t tend to follow that idea. Instead, they often take the view that the people least “ready” for love are the most in need of it. Someone doesn’t need to “fix” themselves before they can be loved—they can be met where they are, messy and broken but still deserving. On Pushing Daisies, Ned is riddled with trauma and trust issues, but he still gets to be with Chuck. On Our Flag Means Death, Ed is convinced he’s an unlovable monster, but Stede loves him just as desperately when he’s at his lowest. On Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, throwing herself into ill-advised relationships has been a toxic pattern for Rebecca, and once she gets into a good therapy program, she needs to be convinced that she still deserves real love along her way to healing. In A Wrinkle in Time, Calvin compliments Meg’s “dreamboat eyes” right after she breaks down crying in front of him and emphasizes what a mess she is. For a familial example, let’s look at Everything Everywhere All at Once: Evelyn complains that Joy is getting fat and never calls in the same breath that she says she’d rather be standing in a parking lot arguing with her daughter than anywhere else in the multiverse. 

 

Forgiveness is Given, Not Earned

Related to the paragraph above, this one really hits me hard. I don’t know why, but fandom involves a lot of judgment: which character is in the wrong, how much do they need to be punished for what they’ve done, and what do they have to suffer before other characters should forgive them or they can be considered “redeemed”? From Ted Lasso, “Nate doesn’t deserve to come back to AFC Richmond after how he betrayed Ted!” From Our Flag Means Death, “I can’t believe Izzy apologize to Ed, the man who shot him, at the end of season 2!” From Good Omens, “Aziraphale better grovel before Crowley forgives him in season 3!” And so on and so on. But so often, BNE stories reject that punitive mindset in favor of grace. AFC Richmond invites Nate to come back. Izzy recognizes that the hurt Ed caused him doesn’t erase the hurt he caused Ed (and vice versa.) The Twelfth Doctor immediately forgives Clara for a deep, grief-stricken betrayal on Doctor Who, and a major thesis of The Good Place is that humans will never be “good enough,” but condemning them for that robs them of their chance to always do better.

 

Radical Compassion

Following the last paragraph, this is a storytelling theme I’ve loved for years, and it’s something I’ve written about before, but it’s only much more recently that I connected it to BNE stories. It goes beyond forgiving friends/former friends who’ve wronged us, seeing hostility and antagonism and instead choosing love and empathy. It’s Moana singing to Te Kā in Moana. It’s Waymond begging Evelyn to “please, be kind” during the final battle in Everything Everywhere All at Once. It’s Kipo repeatedly trying to connect with her opponents in Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts. It’s Meg realizing that the only way she can fight IT is by loving Charles Wallace in A Wrinkle in Time. I just love it so much.

 

Radical Change to Make Life Worth Living

This is an important component. A major theme with neurodivergent-coded protagonists is that they don’t fit in with the larger world around them, not just because they’re “weird” or “socially awkward,” but because they have A Thing. Something inside of them that needs to come out, or something calling to them that they need to follow. When this happens, their story is almost always about going against everything society tells them they’re supposed to do/want in order to pursue their Thing and hold it close to them. It’s why so many Disney princess resonate on an ND level, from Ariel to Moana to Mulan. On Doctor Who, we see it in how the Doctor runs away from Gallifrey to travel in the TARDIS, seeing the universe and helping people in trouble. Amélie becomes a full-time do-gooder, concocting elaborate schemes to better people’s lives in inventive and whimsical ways. In Polite Society, no one understands Ria’s fierce dedication to becoming a stuntwoman, and she won’t let anybody tell her that she can’t succeed because of her size. On DuckTales, Scrooge leads the family on expeditions, not just to find treasure and increase his wealth, but because adventuring is in their blood and they couldn’t be content with “ordinary” lives. On We Are Lady Parts, Amina keeps telling herself everything “proper” she’s supposed to be doing with her life, but playing with Lady Parts unlocks something in her that she never knew was there. On Our Flag Means Death, Stede literally runs away from his life as a wealthy landowner to become a pirate!

Y tu Luna también: Criminal (2004, R)

Before we get into it, a couple exciting things. First, Andor season 2 is actually, finally imminent! April 22 feels so far away, but at least it’s a date. The 10-second clip and first-look images that have been released have me champing at the bit. And second, how on Earth did I miss that Diego Luna is gonna be playing Valentin in the movie musical adaptation of Kiss of the Spider-Woman?!? His first musical role since The Book of Life and his first live-action musical role ever??? I only found out that this project exists, and I’m already waiting for it with bated breath! (Also, Jennifer Lopez as Aurora sounds just delicious.)

Okay, onto your regularly scheduled review.

I never quite know what to expect from Diego Luna’s older movies. They can be all over the place in terms of quality—I’ve watched a number that are iffy at best, and adding insult to injury, some of those barely feature him at all. So I go into a lot of these films with an air of caution. On some level, Criminal is a bit basic and tries too hard in places, but I ultimately came away really liking it.

One day, out-for-himself conman Richard Gaddis takes notice of Rodrigo, a young man trying to pull some simple cons in a casino. He gets Rodrigo out of a tight spot and, because he’s currently without a partner, decides to take the kid for a test run. Richard offers Rodrigo the chance to learn some tricks from him, but their one day of training-wheels-level cons takes a turn when a gigantic opportunity falls into Richard’s lap.

This is an American remake of an Argentine film called Nine Queens. I haven’t seen that movie, so I don’t know how well this adaptation compares, but I thought it was a good time. It’s fun to watch Richard teach Rodrigo the tools of his trade, even if the script lays on the “world-weary crook mentor who trusts no one” routine pretty thick sometimes. And once the central scam of the film gets underway, we see a nice mix of expertise, complications, and pivots. Things do get a bit convoluted, but for the most part, it all seems to hold together.

John C. Reilly isn’t an actor I’d have thought of for a character like Richard, but it mostly works. While he’s not able to sell the hokiest of the dialogue, he gives off the right air for the sort of cons Richard pulls—he generally presents himself as a businessman, solid but not overly flashy, and Reilly plays the character with just enough slickness that you can never quite tell where he stands. Maggie Gyllenhaal is effective as his sister Valerie, who wants to keep her crook brother’s business far away from the fancy hotel where she works, and Peter Mullan does a nice job as William Hannigan, the wealthy tycoon that Richard sets his sights on (who, of course, just so happens to be staying at Valerie’s hotel.) Side note: I wouldn’t quite consider Mullan a Hey It’s That Guy!, because he’s never instantly recognizable to me. But pretty much every time I see him pop up in a film, I feel the need to look him up on IMDb, not just because I can tell I’ve seen him before, but because he’s so good. The film also features brief appearances from Enrico Colantoni and Michael Shannon.

Luna plays Rodrigo, who’s firmly the second lead of the film. This would’ve been just a few years after Y tu mamá también, when Hollywood had taken some interest in him, and even if the movie itself is a bit more middle-of-the-pack, this is a perfectly respectable role for him, and he does a nice job with it. The film revolves around the dynamic between Richard and Rodrigo. Richard is a career criminal who looks at con artistry as more than just a way to make money: it’s a philosophy, a way of life. By turns, Rodrigo explains that he’s just dipping his toe into this world because he needs money quick to help pay the loan sharks who are leaning on his father. Richard thinks Rodrigo gets too squeamish about certain aspects of the work, like not wanting to con an old lady, and he doesn’t appreciate the judgmental eye he sometimes gives. And Rodrigo is definitely wary of Richard—I can see the faintest glimmer of Cassian’s guarded watchfulness on Andor in this role—but at the same time, when he sees one of Richard’s cons comes together, he kind of lights up.

And for all that Richard frames himself as the jaded all-knowing teacher and Rodrigo as the wet-behind-the-ears novice who doesn’t have the stomach to be a “real” conman, Rodrigo shows real talent for the work. Richard tells him he “thinks too much” and says that his only real asset is that “you look like a nice guy,” but Rodrigo bails him out more than once, taking advantage of his keen sense of observation (hehe, Cassian vibes again!) to improvise on the spot.

Recommend?

In General – Maybe. It’s an entertaining conman flick with some good performances, and I think it sticks the landing pretty well.

Diego Luna – Yes. This is a good role for him, and he does a great job with it.

Warnings

Language, scenes of violence, drinking/smoking/drug references, sexual references (including sexual harassment,) and thematic elements.

A Little TLC(w): The New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre: Season 1, Episode 39 (1986)

*A couple broad-strokes spoilers that don’t go into detail.*

Penultimate episode! In some ways, it definitely feels like it, while there are other parts that I don’t think quite got the buildup they needed. Also, we’ve possibly gotten our last New Heaven Sword and Dragon Sabre extended flashback!

In the last episode, the lion-killing event went in an unexpected direction. The sects are no longer completing for the privilege to kill Xie Xun—instead, they’re preparing to band together as a common enemy approaches. Where Zhang Wuji’s love life is concerned, an important secret is revealed, and Wuji realizes once and for all where his heart lies.

The lion-killing event has felt like such a big plot over the past several episodes that I was surprised to pivot away from it so close to the end. It sort of makes sense, because the enemy that’s bearing down on all the sects has been a major one in the series, one that’s caused a lot of damage and has been on the warpath for a while. But at the same time, they haven’t been emphasized in the story recently. When I realized that this was how we were leading into the finale, my reaction was less, “Of course, everything has been building toward this moment!” and more, “Oh right, those guys are still around.” Which, for me, makes it all feel a little less epic than the story is aiming for.

Still, there are aspects of this plot that appeal to me. After Zhang Wuji has spent so much of the series trying to build bridges between various sects, it’s gratifying to see them rally and fight alongside one another. Nicely done, Wuji!

The one person who’s not fully brought into the fold here is Zhao Min. She still regularly wears her male disguise while the martial arts stuff is going down, but it’s obvious to everyone that it’s a disguise, which only makes them wonder what she’s hiding. And of course, none of the sects have forgotten how she moved against them earlier in the show—some of the masters she abducted were killed, and plenty of warriors aren’t in the mood to be forgiving about that. There’s a great moment in the episode where a group of warriors come to confront her while she’s with Zhang Wuji, and his expression as they round on her is simply a force to be reckoned with. It’s an early example of Tony Leung Chiu-wai deploying his soulful eyes to maximum effect!

As I said, this episode seems to finally settle the question of the love polygon. This is where the flashbacks come in, as a few major bombshells are first dropped and then explored. We recontextualize past events through a different vantage point. There’s an incredibly weak defense of a terrible act, and Zhang Wuji reels at the stuff he learns here.

But while the revelations of the episode might seem poised to clear the way for the “last woman standing” in the race for Zhang Wuji’s affections, I like that Wuji himself doesn’t frame it that way. It’s not really about These Are the Reasons Why I’m Choosing You and Not Her. Instead, it’s much more about his own feelings. There’s a nice scene where he compares his immediate reactions when something big went down with each of the four women who were in love with him, and that helps him see where his heart is. Which I like—he’s spent a lot of time focusing on who he’s supposed to love or how he’s supposed to act, so it’s good to see him really examine how he feels about all this.

Also, just a quick bit that made me smile: there’s a scene where Zhang Wuji and Zhao Min are discussing times when she’d been framed for crimes that weren’t her fault. Even though Wuji believed the frame job at the time, he’s now relieved that he wasn’t able to take revenge on Miss Zhao. He says, “Actually, I should thank you—if you weren’t so smart, I should have killed you already,” which is weirdly sweet? Hehe!