This was a great biopic. The lovely and multi-talented Claire Danes did fantastic work playing an autistic person. I have not seen or met Dr. Temple Grandin in real life, though I have known autistic people in my life and there was never a moment in "Temple Grandin," that wasn't believable.
Addressing the whole "reinforcing the stereotype," situation that constantly come about after films like, "Rain Man," I do not believe the films reinforce stereotypes. It is the mistake of the viewer to make general assumptions based on a single incident.
Temple Grandin shows more about someone with a psychological condition than just having the ability to persistently have a big heart as in "Radio," or "I Am Sam," (important to say that those characters were not autistic)even though they served their own purposes.
Autism is a different way of experiencing the world, but the individuals who are autistic are individuals as any one else. It would be ignorant to say that they are all savants or have special abilities, but if they are immersed in an environment that suits an autistic person's needs and way of thinking, then they can grow, thrive or fail as any other individual in society. As far as the movie illustrates to us, in Temple Grandin's life, she needed to be taught self-reliance, self-awareness, and have her potential recognized and cultivated as well as patient, loving, and understanding emotional support.
Temple Grandin's story explains this all quite well I think. Of course there is an entire spectrum of intelligence levels among autistic people, as there is with people without predisposed psychological conditions, it would be ignorant and cynical to assume otherwise. Temple Grandin is a genius, who happens to be autistic. Fantastic movie.
