It's official: Autism is now the cause du jour for contemporary documentarians. Unlike such recent vanity projects as The Horse Boy and A Mother's Courage, Gerardine Wurzburg's film focuses not on the "selfless" parents, but on the autistics themselves: a pair of Vermont sufferer-activists traveling abroad on an advocacy tour. While the movie meanders a tad too much and suffers from J. Ralph's wretchedly literal-minded folk-rock soundtrack, Wretches succeeds in communicating both the daily struggles and the determination of its autistic subjects, whether American or international.
Watch the trailer