Life, Animated

Ron, do I have to keep my hand

pressed on the red button?

- What?

- I don't have to keep my hand

- pressed on the red button?

- No.

...shut his eyes fight shut.

Huffed and puffed.

Oh, but the candle barely flickered,

and there were 39 left to go.

Can you guys

say good night to me?

Can you say,

"Good night, Mommy?

Good-bye.

Good night, angel.

- Good-bye, good night.

- Good night.

Okay, blow Mommy a kiss.

- No!

- Mommy, pick Owen up.

- Get me up.

- Okay, you can both come up.

Okay. One big, happy family

about to go into the water.

- You want to say hi to Mommy?

- Hi, Mom.

- Hi, guys.

- I want to watch a video.

You want to watch a video?

Well, I'm taking a video

oi you guys reading

The Biggest Birthday Cake in the World.

Last book reading,

which we do every single night.

Walt Disney Pictures.

Okay, our next film

is a wonderful children's film.

And the Academy Award...

So what we're gonna do today,

when you're out in the community, right?

When you're... Next year,

when you're making appointments

and having to find locations,

you always have to be...

- Aware.

- Aware, right.

So when we're walking

through the community,

what's our posture for walking?

- This.

- Okay.

- What about our chins? Where are they?

- Chin up.

Where's the safest place to cross?

Go back and forth across Main Street?

- I-I can... I need help here.

- Okay. Who wants to help him?

- I'll do it.

- Go ahead.

- The crosswalk.

- Crosswalk.

- The crosswalk.

- You're right.

So next year you'll be

more independent,

and you'll

have more choices to make.

I've got to teach my son

a lesson.

My name is Owen Suskind.

I'll be graduating in a month.

Then I'll be moving and living

into an apartment of my own.

Since Beauty and the Beast...

I'm home!

- Yay, buddy.

- Owen!

Owen, I just got back

from the grocery store.

- Oh, that's great.

- What would you like for lunch?

A grilled ham and cheese.

Excuse me, I need to find...

- Your apples, right?

- Okay.

Owen, your sandwich

is over there, bud.

Thanks. And I'll get three

Chips Ahoy! cookies.

Okay.

You got a big rite of passage

coming with graduation.

You're gonna be out of school.

Now we can start thinking

a little more about the future?

- Yeah, yeah.

- How's that feel?

A little nervous

and a little exciting.

A little nervous and a little exciting.

I'm so glad

you came back tonight.

- I might never have seen you.

- Why?

Because I have to grow up tomorrow.

Grow up?

Tonight's my last night in the nursery.

But that means no more stories.

No, I won't have it!

Come on.

- But where are we going?

- To Neverland.

I'll run him through.

Take that.

Blast this hook.

Come on, everybody.

Hurry, Michael!

Don't stand there, you bilge rats!

Get those scurvy brats!

Oh, no!

Daddy and Owen...

Fighting with swords in the leaves.

Owen, who are you?

I'm Peter Pan.

And you're Captain Hook.

Oh, I'm Captain Hook. You're Peter Pan.

Okay. Come on, Pan, you demon.

There's a video we came across,

and then once we found it,

we couldn't stop watching it.

Oh, thank you, thank you.

That's very chivalrous of you.

Now, in a way, it's just

an unremarkable video

of a dad and a son playing.

I'm chasing Owen around.

He's chasing me around.

He's Peter Pan.

I'm Captain Hook.

Oh, no!

At the time we shot it,

I'm in my early 30s.

I'm a reporter

for The Wall Street Journal,

and our life is taking shape

just the way we'd wanted.

We had two beautiful boys.

We'd just had our second boy.

We had a little, tiny house,

but it was just, like, our dream house.

You want to say hi to Mommy?

- Hi, Mommy.

- Hi, guys.

You know, everything

was falling into place.

But all of a sudden,

at three years old, Owen vanishes.

Good-bye, Peter Pan!

Owen just started changing really fast.

You know, he wasn't sleeping.

That was the first thing.

He'd be up in the middle of the night,

and then he'd be up all night.

His motor skills were deteriorating,

and then his language

processing broke down.

He just started reciting

this gibberish.

It was hard for me to

understand what people were saying.

They were all garbled.

- Owen! Owen!

- Owen!

Owen!

It's like... We're looking for clues

to a kidnapping.

Someone kidnapped our son.

We went to the pediatrician,

but he had no idea

what he was looking at.

He said, "You're out of my league."

So we go see the specialist.

It's not a pediatrician 's office

like you're used to going to.

It's one that has

a special room with a window

to observe children

like guinea pigs.

The doctor has Owen walk down

along hall from me to Cornelia,

and I just want to say, you know,

"Just walk like you used to walk."

Like, I'm whispering that to him.

"Okay, buddy, just walk

like you know how to walk,"

and I let go of him,

and he just weaves down the hall,

like someone walking

with their eyes shut.

And he gets to the end,

and Cornelia grabs his hand.

I remember literally just,

like, holding him in a bear hug

and just thinking, you know,

"I'm just gonna hold you so tight,

and love you so much that

whatever is going on will go away."

The doctor says, "He has a

pervasive developmental disorder,"

and she says the word "autism."

It was... It was devastating.

It was completely devastating.

Then after a few minutes,

she says,

"Some of the kids never

get their speech back.

They don't ever talk again."

And we just looked down at him

and the kid playing on the rug,

looking at his hands,

and the doctor saying,

"So let me explain

what autism is."

Look what we have

here! What is this, Owen?

What do you have here?

Hey, what do these look like?

Oh, let's get this away.

All right.

All right, we need to stop sillies.

You need... Owen.

I first met Owen

when he was three years old.

At that point, I think that Ron

and Cornelia were devastated.

I think that it shattered

their ideal vision

of who this child

is going to become.

The image of autism

in the early 1990s,

uh, was not terribly flattering.

So they're looking

for any glimmer of hope

that there are other

possibilities out there

besides an adult that

will be forever dependent.

The child with autism

is easily overstimulated.

They don't filter

the constant stimuli

that come in on a daily basis.

This world is just too intense

for their brains,

and that's always

what I felt about Owen,

especially when

he was a tiny baby.

You know,

the vacuum cleaner would go on,

the visual stimulation,

the auditory stimulation.

So imagine how difficult it would

be to just do the simplest things

if you have this

constant noise in your brain.

Owen, Owen, Owen.

Owen, look.

When your child goes

into their adult living,

they've also been in an environment

where the adults have

been telling them a lot.

So now it's gonna be

your turn in a couple of months

to start you telling them things

about what you want to do

and what, you know,

what you're comfortable with...

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