Better Late Then Never

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

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 voted mainly for the soundtrack... great songs. But it also was a touching movie. i was kind of little of the time and not to hard to impress but it was a great movie.That is all I had to say but it seems i need 10 lines and I don't think I can think enough to produce another 6 lines so...I voted mainly for the soundtrack... great songs. But it also was a touching movie. i was kind of little of the time and not to hard to impress but it was a great movie.That is all I had to say but it seems i need 10 lines and I don't think I can think enough to produce another 6 lines so...

This is a multi-faceted story with so many nuances that it doesn't surprise me that so many people who watch it miss most of them.While watching this on IFC (Independent Film Channel), I was perusing the user comments and wondering where I'd fit in, once I'd reached the end of the film. I don't fit anywhere, really. I knew from about 45 seconds into the film where this child was going (to the moon, for her father). Exactly 44 minutes into the film Ruth tells the doctor her daughter is NOT autistic. He says "No, she's not, but..." So you see never once is this child "diagnosed" autistic. Jake the doctor and Ruth the mother are seeking the same goal, from completely different points of reference. They are BOTH right - but in the end it's the mother (who is herself "special") who has the better instincts - and it's that wondrous architectural "House of Cards" that ultimately brings her daughter back.Key scenes? There are so many I hesitate to list any of them, but here are a couple: The American Indian construction worker who "rescues" Sally from the beam (or whatever it's supposed to be) and communicates with her on some silent, almost mystical, level was beautiful to behold.Sally's softball catch was a REAL clue, as was her retrieval of older brother Michael's plane from the roof and her foray back onto the roof for the softball. From her fearless internal world she was able to do what most of us cannot.All of the actors were terrific, but I think Tommy Lee Jones' portrayal of the troubled doctor was superlative, as most of his portrayals are.If you decide to give this film a shot - PLEASE - pay real attention to the details. Without them you'll never get "the point."

I am the father who wrote the original comments criticizing this movie for its use of autism. To address those who have said, sometimes rather heatedly, that it is obvious that the girl is NOT autistic and anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish (or at least has a short attention span) please consider this:If it were obvious from the beginning of the movie that the girl is suffering from an odd denial response brought on by a shaman's comments, and not an identifiable disorder, then the bulk of the movie would be meaningless. What would be the point of all the medical scenes with the use of apparently handicapped (including autistic) children if the viewer already "knows" the girl's problem?The girl displays very striking features of childhood autism, so on what basis is it reasonable that the mother should resist treatment? You can say: "you see, it wasn't really autism," but as a simple dramatic point they don't give anyone but the guileless moviegoer any reason to think otherwise.People with handicapped children often wish that anyone giving them bad news is wrong, and that there is a simple "magic" cure for their child's disorder, and so the movie unintentionally gives very bad advice.I feel it is shameful for the movie makers to have used a disability and disabled people as props for a feelgood story that denies reality as much as the little girl does.