Uma Família Especial

Helena Bonham Carter is well cast as Maggi, a Mother of three children who are each in some way autistic.

We follow their life as Maggi struggles to cope with her children. One of them has attention deficit disorder, so is constantly loud and troublesome, but harmless really. Her eldest son Christopher has aspergers so is very trusting and cannot understand things like idioms or sarcasm. I forget the name of her other childs affliction, though it causes him to stay under the table wearing goggles and earmuffs for most of the programme. Some of the situations in this are quite funny. The script does its best to be thought provoking, at times walking the narrow line between being overly sentimental or just thought provoking. The mix here is about right though.

The inquisitive Christopher meets the school caretaker Dmitri, whom he sort of becomes friends with. Eventually Dmitri meets struggling Maggi and helps her to change the rules she has imposed on her children.

When this comes around on TV in the US or wherever, I suggest you watch it. Its funny, touching and just generally nice family viewing.