one of my absolute favorites!

A Brilliant Conflict

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

It is a whirlwind of delight --- attractive actors, stunning couture, spectacular sets and outrageous parties.

SPOILER ALERT****************************************** I actually don't know if I give away too much but I am putting the alert here just to be safe.As a mom of a little boy with autism, I was drawn to this movie and come back again from time to time. I always cry at the end knowing that is not a reality for families with autism but wishing it could be. The school where the doctor teaches other kids is the reality I know. And the line (forgive me if it is not exact), "Here, ordinary is extraordinary" is something I think only families dealing with autism truly understand. My son and I have been working with specialists since he was just over a year old. And at 3 years and 9 months, I got my first, self-initiated "Mommy, I need a kiss." I cried with joy for days. He expressed an emotional need, self-initiated it, and said it in a sentence! You can tell when you meet people new to my son and they get so excited about the extraordinary things he can do. But like in this movie when you look at the parents and teachers working so hard, it is on the little things you take for granted. Don't get me wrong. We love the extraordinary things that make our children so special and fascinating. But when the ordinary things happen like the boy at the school hugging his mom for the first time, that is when we parents shout for joy and hoot and holler in celebration.Dealing with a child with autism is like putting together a giant puzzle with infinite pieces. If you like the thrill of figuring things out, then it is great because the puzzle never ends...it just develops into a clearer picture the more you can fit things together. And since the number of pieces are infinite, you don't get a neat little picture on the box that lets you know exactly how things should look and you work towards that. Nope, that kind of puzzle is for amateurs. With autism, you study the pieces as they fit together and learn how they relate to one another and get glimpses of what a bigger picture may look like. But you know at any time one section of the puzzle may elude you completely while another section starts coming together quickly, making sense out of the patterns. And what you get is an ever-growing and changing picture of who that child is.

I haven't been so disappointed since Bush got reelected. I was mainly interested in this movie because Tommy Lee Jones was in it, and I would have to say he did an admirable job with the senseless drivel he was forced to deliver. Kathleen Turner is not one of my favourites, but here I just wanted to reach in and strangle her. The whole thing was a spielbergesque schmaltzfest of embarrassing proportions, and what flabbergasts me is that so many people seem to embrace it on so many levels, as if it actually had something meaningful to say.It is insulting that they should be able to take a condition such as autism (which the child doesn't have but the movie wants you to think she does) and trivialize it and make it the centrepiece of a maudlin, unrealistic dumbed down piece of soap drama.The eponymous house of gravity-defying cards itself could not, by any stretch, have been built by a 6-year-old, or anyone else. The virtual reality simulations depicted were preposterous in 1993; today they are a ludicrous parody. Those are just a couple of the obvious technical failures.I am quite prepared to suspend my notions of plausibility to allow artistic fulfillment, but that only works when it is needed as a vehicle to get the message through. There is no message here, it is just fatuous nonsense of the worst kind: Deliberate emotional manipulation of the sort that Mr. Spielberg is a master of.This doesn't work on me, and I find it dismaying that it does seem to work on so many others, as shown here by how few reviewers were able to see through it. If you like having your intelligence insulted, then by all means, watch this.

One can learn a lot about children and how they respond uniquely to great traumas in their young lives. Being able to understand and deal with grief is something that adults tend to shelter children from in order to protect them. Since some tend to have very strong memory capabilities until they learn from peer pressure that tone down that ability, it should not be surprising that traumatic memories can have significant effects. This movie seems to portrays this situation very well. It also illustrates how little we know about autism, it's causes and effects. Jake figuratively throwing up his hands after seeming to have no idea how to help Sally clearly indicated to me how so-called traditional medicine is really only good for treating the symptoms of disease and most often fails to treat the route causes. The underlying theme seems to me to be about the common 'fear of falling'. We all deal with our own fears in many different ways, with some letting such fears paralyze and traumatize them throughout their lives. While others "get back on the horse" and are able to overcome them. Those who are successful at conquering their fears do so at their own pace, in their own time. Those who don't suffer from them for a lifetime. The reaction to having things out of place seems to be a common situation with autistic persons . Perhaps it is merely a one personal fear that has not been overcome. The movie presents one other issue that we all deal with as adults and parents. Whether or not to trust or believe in the ability of medical professionals to help our precious children and whether or not a parent is a better judge of a young child's condition than the professional. How can someone who has not lived with a person really know what is best for that person in need? What do we do when a professionals' personal or career self-interests seem to interfere with what is best for the sick child? How do you trust your child to the care of an 'outsider'? In these days of movie blockbusters and sensationalized story-telling, it is very rare that a movie can be as timeless and thought provoking as this one while attempting to get the viewer to think about modern issues in non-traditional ways. This is definitely one of the best movies for making the viewer think about a number of issues and the possibilities that non-traditional thinking that sometimes yield.

I was hooked on the story, having many friends with autistic children. The acting was enjoyable and drew me in to the story but the end was unsatisfying for me. I wasn't quite sure what was happening toward the end of the film. The symbolism was not sufficiently supported by the storyline so as a viewer I was cast adrift to make my own interpretations.The little girl was cute and played her part well as did her big brother. Tommy Lee's performance was a little uneven for me. I could see him straining to find his character at times. Ms Turner was as good as ever.