Big Neurodivergent Energy Films: 1-5

We’ve looked at a few Big Neurodivergent Energy TV shows, now how about some movies? Most of the films on today’s list are newer entries that I’ve watched in the last year, but they quickly joined the ranks of my favorites. 

 

Amélie

This was an early “grown-up” film that I really loved, so it makes sense that it has exceedingly autistic vibes. Arguably, every Jean-Pierre Jeunet film does, but this one does it in such an endearing, lovable way. From the narrator fastidiously detailing every character’s likes and dislikes (and obsessions,) to the painfully shy heroine concocting “stratagems” to connect with the man she likes, to Amélie’s deep-seated desire to help others/punish injustice combined with her intense need not to be perceived doing either, it just feels so lovingly autistic. Amazing!

 

The Little Mermaid

Yes, I’m specifically talking about the live-action adaptation here, although points can definitely be made for the animated version. While the neurodivergent coding may not be quite as deep-seated here as it is in some of the other films on this list, it was one of the first—maybe the first—I saw once I’d really started considering the possibility that I was autistic and ADHD. And Ariel and Eric both leapt off the screen for me. I love the tenor of their relationship, how it develops through their special interests and grows without the need for verbal communication on both sides. Seeing people online talk about how neurodivergent both of these characters are really helped crystalize my understanding of myself.

 

Nimona

Nimona is definitely an example where the film itself feels autistic/ADHD, not just the characters. I love the fast-paced humor and frenetic action combined with the emotional character drama and the found-family themes. I love Nimona’s explanation to Ballister about what shapeshifting feels like—the trans allegory is evident, of course, but I also see it as a commentary on masking and the importance of giving yourself permission to be “free.”

 

Nope

I love both OJ and Em, how their traits are so different from one another and clash so much, but how they both come through for each other the best they can. And I love how their respective traits end up helping them succeed—not in an “autism/ADHD is actually a superpower!” kind of way, but in a way that their particular situation dovetails so well with OJ’s special interest and Em’s penchant for collecting hobbies. Their respective autistic- and ADHD-coded traits can create challenges for them professionally and interpersonally, but when it comes to a UFO over their ranch, they lock in!

 

Polite Society

Oh my god, I love it so much. Ria’s hyperfocus and daydreaming, the way she infuses her life with the tension and drama of an action film, the general energy and humor and pacing and secondhand embarrassment. It’s so ADHD to me—I feel it in my bones.

Relationship Spotlight: Nino Quincampoix & Amélie Poulain (Amélie)

I may be asexual and aromantic, but I’m not averse to a good romance in my fiction, and I figured today’s pair was a fitting topic for Valentine’s Day.  Their story isn’t as gorgeous as that of Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan from In the Mood for Love, but that story is also a major downer, romance-wise, where Amélie and Nino are all light and harmony.  No, not “all” – I should clarify.  Their pre-face-to-face courtship, as timid as it is whimsical, comes with its share of worries and potential heartbreak.  This love story, though, is a celebration, and these two people ultimately reflect that.

We’ll start with their not-quite meet-cute, a match made in oddball heaven.  As he gropes beneath a photo booth for torn-up shreds of discarded pictures, her heart beats right through the garden gnome stuffed inside her jacket.  Painfully shy Amélie feels an instant affinity with Nino but doesn’t get a chance to speak to him before he races off in pursuit of his bizarre holy grail.  In real life, it could have ended as easily as that, one of many missed opportunities that outrun us every day, but this is a modern-day Parisian fairytale, and Amélie and Nino are fated in their own peculiar way.  Ever since their mutually lonely childhoods, in which both longed for an absent playmate, they’ve been slowly making their way towards one another.  That’s why, when Nino leaves, he accidentally drops his photo album in the process. 

This is the “in” Amélie needs, the excuse to push herself to take the risk of real, genuine contact.  Their early advances play out in photographed disguises, strategically-placed disassembled messages, and homemade posters reaching out to an audience of one.  She captivates him with her inventive communiques, and though he’s not quite at her level, he does his best to respond in kind.  It’s a treasure hunt correspondence, Cinderella trying to get her prince to find her without the help of a glass slipper.  Their biggest obstacle is Amélie’s fear of taking the final steps required to get to Nino – every time she gets close, she retreats and falls back on yet more complicated schemes.  While her charmingly strange theatrics appeal to Nino’s imagination, he can only follow her trail so long before she has to let herself be found.

There’s a quote that says love is about falling “into mutually satisfying weirdness” with “someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours,” and that definitely comes to mind when I think of Amélie and Nino.  A young woman who records whimsy on her VCR and uses foot cream to commit acts of vengeance needs someone who will understand that and roll with it.  She needs someone who collects laughter, shoe impressions in concrete, and ripped-up photographs.  She needs someone who will follow arrows made of birdseed and woo her in a skeleton costume, and that’s what she discovers in Nino.  But their love story is more than just the magic, and she needs that, too.  She needs someone who will come back for her when she runs away, who will wait for her to be brave, open the door, and face the truth within her dream.  Though we don’t get as good a picture of what Nino needs, it’s clear that Amélie fits the rather unique bill.  It’s why he goes down all her rabbit holes, why he recognizes her through her disguises, and why he waits on the other side of the door.  It’s sweet, contented mutually satisfying weirdness, and I just adore it.

Amélie (2001, R)

 

This is the first foreign film that I truly loved.  It kicked off my deep admiration for Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s work, and it’s one of those films that sparks your affection for every actor who appeared in it (chiefly, of course, the fabulous Audrey Tautou in the title role.)  It’s a movie I can watch time and time again, one that never feels long or lagging.

 

Amélie is a young French woman who works as a waitress in a café.  Though a charming, imaginative oddball, she’s almost debilitatingly shy and generally keeps to herself.  However, a twist of fate unearths the lost treasures of a young boy who lived in her apartment decades ago, and she resolves to reunite the trinkets with their owner.  Her stratagem pays off well, and she sets about becoming a secret do-gooder.  It’s only herself that she has trouble helping, as she may scheme herself out of a potential love connection.

 

It’s such a vibrant, beautiful film, saturated with color and crammed with amusing characters.  It flits lightly between the past and the present, as well as in and out of fantasy.  It employs an even-keeled narrator, infrequent notes scrawled on the screen, and the occasional aside to the viewer to hold the high-flying plot together, and the result is the cinematic equivalent of a crème brûlée.  I’m hard-pressed to voice just how delightful it is.

 

Amélie’s inventive machinations in others’ lives play a big part of that.  She enchantingly weaves curious details and tidbits into her gifts of kindness.  She collects overheard remarks, interesting news articles, and entertaining television clips and marries them to her careful observations of the people in her life.  Quietly, whimsically, she figures out what they need and gives it to them in the most creative way possible.  Using everything from love letters to garden gnomes, numerous lives become a bit brighter due to Amélie.

 

I also love the way the film celebrates people’s quirks and obsessions, their simple pleasures and pet peeves.  Nearly every character is introduced with a brief introduction of what they like (such as popping bubble wrap or polishing parquet) and don’t like (such as wet swimming trunks or seeing men embarrassed in front of their children,) and many have a singular, consuming interest.  Dufayel, Amélie’s neighbor, has painted new versions of the same Renoir painting for 20 years, and Amélie’s would-be soul mate Nino keeps a scrapbook of discarded pictures from photo booths.  These details and preoccupations are sprinkled so lovingly throughout the film that it feels uniquely human – messy, fond, a little crazy, and above all, remarkably individual.

 

As Amélie and Nino, Audrey Tautou and Matthieu Kassovitz both make their first Jeunet appearances here but fit seamlessly into his world (Tautou later worked with Jeunet again in the excellent A Very Long Engagement.)  The rest of the film is populated by many of his talented, slightly odd-looking regulars, including the terrific Dominique Pinon as a man scorned and Rufus as Amélie’s sedate father.

 

Warnings

 

Language, some drinking, and very French sexual content, including nudity and brief flashes of sex scenes.