Rowan Isaacson is five years old. He has temper tantrums that last for hours, he is not toilet-trained, he will not communicate, he cannot be reasoned with. He is autistic. But he loves his toy animals and plays constantly with them, especially the horses. And one day his parents, Rupert Isaacson and Kristin Neff, discover that real horses have a calming effect on him. "The Horse Boy" begins.
What's next? Well, Isaacson and Neff and their son go from Texas to Mongolia in search of horses and shamans who–perhaps–can have a calming effect on the boy. It's a fascinating tale of success and failure, of discovering that small improvements can bring huge benefits, of learning how other cultures, like the semi-nomadic people of Mongolia, deal with similar problems.
Isaacson is the primary narrator, and Michel Orion Scott, the director and cinematographer, makes the countryside look beautiful and foreboding, keeps the camera tight on the family and his created a fascinating little film, with discussions from such as Temple Grandin, herself autistic, who has worked with animals all her life, and Simon Baron-Cohen, a psychologist from Cambridge University, who looks eerily like his cousin Sacha.
Watching Rowan and his family interact with the Mongolians,and enjoying Rowan's playing with a little Mongolian boy of similar age are charming. Isaacson nicely works a balance between his intellectual realization of what he is doing and the unrequited love he gives his son, no matter what the cost.
A very interesting movie that asks some very deep questions and which finds some unusual answers.
Opens today at the Tivoli.
–Joe