Autistic young man Shawn (Jason Trevino) is an engineer for a dating app company living with his grandmother (Jan D'Arcy) and determined to find a woman to be his wife before his grandmother passes, but hasn't had much luck in dating as his idiosyncrasies tend to scare off his dates. Eventually Shawn does find a woman willing to spend more time with him named Violet (Cora Cleary) whom he thinks is an actress when in reality she is a prostitute who is the victim of exploitation and abuse at the hands of her pimp Anton (Michael E. Bell). Over time however Violet finds charm in Shawn beneath his idiosyncrasies.
The Sound of Violet is a romantic dramedy written and directed by Allen Wolf and based off Wolf's novel Hooked. According to Wolf's official website for the film, the story was inspired by his own experiences of ups and downs in the dating world which he then incorporated with exploration of neurodivergent individuals and victims of human trafficking after originally writing the character as an archetype previously seen in other films such as Milk Money and Pretty Woman. I'm sure The Sound of Violet has its heart in the right place, but in execution the final film is a massive mess that feels like someone stapled a Pure Flix rom-com to material from Dateline or 48 Hours.
In terms of the setup for this movie, Shawn isn't all that well written as someone on the autistic spectrum. I can understand the character misreading social cues and situations, but the fact that Shawn doesn't seem to know or understand what a prostitute is doesn't feel like a case of him misreading the situation, it feels like a case of Shawn being written as an idiot for the plot to work. And given that Shawn works for a dating app company you'd think he'd be at least a little aware of the concept as dating apps and other social media have standards and mods addressing that sort of thing so there's no good excuse why Shawn shouldn't know these things even if you want to say it's maybe because of his grandmother sheltering him. I will at least say that Cora Cleary does have some charm as Violet despite the baggage of the role and the rather judgmental attitude the movie takes about her. But when the movie attempts to dive into the ugliness of sexual exploitation and human trafficking it massively clashes with the bubbly airheaded tone of something that feels like it should be playing in the background of your grandmother's house.
I really didn't like this movie and with its awkward subject matter, stilted dialogue, and massive tonal clashes this is probably slightly worse than Milk Money because at least for as stupid as that was it was competently made.
