Philip Larkin wrote, “They fuck you up, your mum and dad/ They may not mean to, but they do/ They fill you with the faults they had/ And add some extra, just for you.” For anyone with a strained relationship with their parents, one built around the pain caused by interpersonal friction and a misunderstanding about the values that you should instill in your children, “This Be the Verse” is a rough breath of fresh air, one that pleads with you to understand your position as the recipient of generations of stratified trauma, before ending with a plea to, perhaps, consider just letting your bloodline end with you.
Tony Goldwyn’s newest film, Ezra, tries its hardest to be a film about that friction, giving us a glimpse into the inner workings of a family of repressed Italian maniacs, told through the focus of Max (Bobby Cannavale) and his relationship with his son, Ezra (William Fitzgerald), who he co-parents with his ex-wife, Jenna (Rose Byrne). As we learn very, very quickly, Ezra is autistic, with a lot of behavioral issues and special needs; he’s the kind of kid who, after his dad binge-watches Breaking Bad with him, assumes the role of Walter White and leads his class in a chaotic walkout, but also feels physical pain when eating with metal utensils. To the film’s credit, the role of Ezra went to an actual autistic person, rather than just another neurotypical child. This authenticity is one of the few successful achievements of the film.
Ezra’s premise is based on a simple question: “What if you made a movie about the kind of parent who thinks the solution to their child’s autism is to ‘toughen up’ and who ignores all requests for accommodation of any sort — but made it impossible to tell if the film is on his side?” The film attempts to tug at the heartstrings by presenting us with a father/son road dramedy, but at times, it feels like it’s purposefully avoiding the dubious moral dimension of Max’s actions. Without giving too much away, he drags his young child to a bar so that he can do standup for Jimmy Kimmel’s talent booker, assaults his doctor for suggesting a method of treatment and, despite one of the conditions of his release from prison being a month-long restraining order from his son, kicks off the film’s central road trip by stealing Ezra from his bed in the middle of the night, without telling anyone, to drive to Michigan. And that’s just the set-up!
A movie about a father abducting a child to travel across 10 states should probably go out of its way to hammer home Max’s villainy or at least his moral turpitude. Ezra never outright cheers on Max in his crusade against those pesky “doctors” and “teachers” with their ideas about “what’s best for children with special needs,” but its subtle endorsement of Max’s actions is baked into every corner of the film, from the heartstring-tugging score to the relative lack of consequences for Max’s actions. Ezra’s mother, however, receives more direct scrutiny; although Jenny may coddle her son, she also understands that neurodivergent people often need accommodations to make this world’s harshness a little more palatable. Max, on the other hand, is the kind of parent who won’t allow his son to eat with a plastic fork, even though he knows that metal silverware greatly distresses his son. In another scene, Max calls his father (Robert De Niro) and talks to him about how much he’s struggling to not hit Ezra. And yet, Ezra is packaged and sold as a heartwarming road movie about a parent trying to do what’s best for his child.
Ezra tries to get you to sympathize with Max in his frustrations while pitying Ezra for having to live with autism. It may seem silly to lament the fact that a film doesn’t outright tell you what to feel, but for a work this frequently heavy-handed, it’s noticeable that it stays silent on how awful Max’s actions are. It’s a shame because almost everyone involved knocks it out of the park. Our cast of players is reasonably small, but all these characters feel real — the interactions between Max, his brother Nick (Rainn Wilson) and their father, Stan, feel like watching an actual family as they dig at each other’s old wounds and talk out their issues.
Movies like Ezra aren’t made for autistic people — they’re made for the families of autistic people. Worse, they feel like they’re made for the families who plaster puzzle-piece stickers on their cars and write posts about how “autism won today.” A film told from the point of view of Ezra may have been great; films from the perspective of people who live with autism are sadly few and far between, and it’s easy to imagine a version of Ezra that shrinks its scope, softens its characters and meaningfully explores the realities of living with autism. Instead, we get a movie full of loathsome adults who view their child not as a person with unique needs worthy of understanding, but as a problem that must be mitigated. More technically flawed films may be released in 2024, but it’s hard to imagine anyone releasing something more misguided and insulting.
Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street
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