rooprect You know the scene in "Peewee's Big Adventure" when he's rescuing all the animals in a burning pet store, but every time he runs past the snakes he gags because he has a deadly fear of them? Yeah well that was me every time I thumbed past "The Black Balloon" on my DVD shelf. I just dreaded the idea of watching it, for some reason. I suppose it was because I was afraid it would fall into the typical upsetting clichés about people with disabilities: kids taunting them, adults misunderstanding them and, in general, the world being a miserable place to them.I get that same feeling of dread when watching movies about cute puppies because you know the writer is going to kill the dog at the end for a cheap (but effective) emotional punch.Anyway, I'm happy to say that "The Black Balloon" is not one of those gratuitous heart clenchers. True, you can expect to see one or two disturbing, "taunting" scenes, but those scenes are poignant and well placed. The bulk of the film is upbeat, and although the character Charlie (afflicted with extreme autism & ADD) is shown to be a big difficulty in the lives of the Mollison family, the feeling I got wasn't "aw pity them" so much as it was "wow admire them".In case you didn't already know, this film was written & directed by Elissa Down who actually grew up with an autistic brother, and this film was her way of conveying the complex difficulties faced by a young sibling growing up in such a situation. The autistic person is not the focus, not like "Shine", "Temple Grandin" or other films that focus on the autistic person's plight in society, but rather, the focus is the younger sibling who faces a nearly impossible challenge of mixing with society with this terribly unpopular "secret", particularly in the early 90s (where this film is set) when autism was a very misunderstood phenomenon.Regardless of subject matter, this is a great film that illustrates the virtues of patience, humility and embracing the abnormal. Like the metaphor of the "black balloon", this film can apply to any situation where you are living with an exception to the rule: not a bright, cheerful balloon that everyone accepts but something unpopular--but a balloon just the same. It can apply to family members with Alzheimer's, cancer, AIDS, depression, you name it, and that's why this is a great film because it can apply to all of us. This is the kind of film with no villains, no contrived "good vs evil" storyline, no big conflict-climax-resolution (although there is a very powerful scene that everything turns on). This is a great film about normal characters reacting to abnormal situations. And even though my description makes it sound dry & boring, it's anything but.This film is mainly about the brother Thomas (Rhys Wakefield) growing up, joining a new school, finding & pursuing love for the first time and balancing all those inherently difficult experiences with the infinitely more difficult problem of how to accept his autistic brother Charlie (Luke Ford). There are some funny moments, some gross-funny moments, some charming moments, frightening moments and disturbing moments. And it all comes together with great acting all around in a quietly explosive story of how to exist with hardships. Like I said, subject matter aside, this film really inspired me to improve my ways in lots of other areas. Not sappy but just the right mix of reality & charm, "The Black Balloon" will LIFT your spirits. Haha get it? LIFT. Needless to say, comedy is one of those areas where I could stand to improve...

Rizar When the Mollison family move to town, the neighbors don't come over to say "hello", they don't send their kids over to play, and they don't miss a chance to stare in annoyance. The Mollison's are mostly normal except for one major difference, they care for a severely disabled, autistic and ADD son, Charlie. But his mother sometimes refers to him as her little "Cheeky Monkey". He introduces himself to the neighbors by sitting in the yard banging large, wooden spoons or sticks repeatedly. Everyone stares at the unusual, new family, and little kids ride up to ask the other son, Thomas, about Charlie's condition."The Black Balloon" is a quirky and enjoyable film for the realistic way it approaches a family's struggle to cope with bringing up an autistic child. They could easily be any typical family. If they were normal, they would be in the upper level of ideal families: two parents, two children, and another one on the way. You can easily imagine the issues they encounter since they seem to react the way any normal family would react to fairly outrageous situations.The director, Elissa Down, has personal experience with two autistic brothers and was able to model Charlie after one of them. This makes for some oddball behavior that a writer probably wouldn't stumble upon by chance. If you don't keep a constant watch on Charlie, he's liable to run out the door in nothing but his colorful undies and invade a neighbor's house to use their bathroom. Locks sometimes help. But if you lock him in his room without keeping an eye on him, he might just entertain himself by splattering the carpet with poo and joyfully playing with it.So you can see his brother Thomas (Rhys Wakefield) has issues to overcome. Much of the film is about Thomas and his difficulty dealing with an atypical childhood. He's new at school and quickly happens to meet one of the cutest girls there, Jackie Masters (Gemma Ward, a successful model at the time she did the role). Many of his first encounters with Jackie are with Charlie at his side chewing on tampons or running down a hall naked. The film holds nothing back and fearlessly portrays the real world odd behaviors that consume an autistic family.One possible advantage is that Thomas matures to real world situations early in his life, which he's hesitant to accept. Thomas has a mix of awkward moments at the school pool (he's not very good at swimming and the gym teacher makes him wear ridiculous yellow swim shorts). He frequently smiles at the odd things going on around him (perhaps a few too many stationary smile scenes). He juggles his desire for Jackie with his hope at having a normal brother one day. Gemma Ward not only has amazing good looks but she also performs Jackie effortlessly, holding back her unexpected capacity for acceptance and understanding until just the right moments.Toni Collette plays the mother, Maggie, with tenacity and playfulness. She's a natural in a chaotic family. Maggie tries to manage her pregnancy and run a household to the point of putting herself in the hospital. She accepts Charlie's limitations and knows he will probably need lifelong care. In one of her best scenes, she cleans up Charlie's feces while she tries to convince Thomas to accept his brother as he is and appreciate that he will have opportunities that Charlie never will.Besides the family struggles, the film has a vivid sense of detail and a wonderful script. It's the sort of intelligent script that makes you want to test out its ideas. This one works: as Jackie and Thomas come out of a lake to get out of the rain and head for cover under a bridge (it's the romance scene of the movie, of course, but first it has a nice little analogy), Jackie tells Thomas to close his eyes and observe what he sees. At first he sees pure blackness, then spots of dancing color, and then finally specks of white dots ingrained in blackness like static on a TV. It never goes away. (Try it sometime; it's true.) The point for the story, however, is that Charlie may have a similar condition in which some features of his experience may never change. Thomas doesn't fully compute the message as he's more interested in other things.The location is in Australia with school uniforms, dorky bike helmets, and 80s-90s clothing (the time period of the story is the early 90s; Super Nintendo being the main game system). The Australian native, Elissa Down, had a part in writing the story as well as directing. Her previous experience was working on short films. She treats the subject with respect, but she also adds a lot of quirky details that make the story enjoyable. Luke Ford plays a convincing version of an autistic child as Charlie. It's not a unique story. It follows in the tradition of "Rain Man" and "What's Eating Gilbert Grape?" But it has enough unique wit and pervasive reality to make it well worth watching. It isn't as funny as something like "Little Miss Sunshine", but it's on the same wavelength.

westhamu Osmosis, I don't care whether you liked the film or not. That's a personal choice. Personally, I thought it was great. 'Fraudulently obtained' taxpayer money? Fraudulently obtained obviously because you didn't like it. It didn't fit into your box. Does a film that you like that I don't (that has been funded by Government Filmcorps) also fall into the 'fraudulently obtained' category. I'm guessing not. I've always been amazed at this line of thought. Money wasted you say. I'm quite happy to let Government bodies fund crap films until the cows come home. As long as about one in ten is a classic. Which usually happens. Good public money spent! And what is a quasi-plagiarist rip-off? You're either a plagiarist or you're not (no quasi about it) and plagiarist rip-off is the oxymoron of all oxymorons. And I've got to add: "Obviously the American Film Industry has been totally conned into believing our mainstream people have talent which explains the constant stream of ever worsening quality of films these days." That doesn't make any sense whatsoever. Do you mean the American Film Industry has taken all our talent so now there's no-one left and as a result our films are crap or do you mean that Americans are making our films huge box-office hits, through their naivety (being conned), and so we keep making the films you don't like. The latter premise is nonsense because our films don't make big Hollywood money whilst the first premise is self-evident by your logic. As Tarantino had Michael Madsen say 'I'm betting you're a big Lee Marvin fan'. I'm betting you're a big Crocodile Dundee fan. Not that there's anything wrong with that. I have it myself. But there's different ways to watch different films. I hate Elton John's music but I can understand why people like it. You obviously have an oligarchical problem with some film board. Script rejected?

markymcmarkson This is one of the best films i have ever seen... I recommend it to anyone. Never before have I ever been put on such a roller-coaster of emotion from mind-blowingly intense scenes to scenes which make me feel sick. Scenes that make me laugh and scenes which make me want to punch something. Rhys Wakefield portrays an adolescent teen amazingly. Which I found surprising looking at some of the acting skills from his fellow Home and Away actors (see Xavier in H&A, WHY IS HE THERE???). I saw the trailer and am a big fan of Toni Collette so decided to rent the film and was interested to see Rhys play a central character. The quality of directing took my breath away and I congratulate anyone involved in the production. I bought it straight away after renting and have watched it at least 5 times all with different people to show them one of the best films EVER MADE.