Movies are art and art has a subjective nature so it’s rare that everybody agrees on what is good or bad when it comes to film. While a general consensus among critics tends to coalesce around any given movie, there are always outliers who like movies that most don’t and who dislike movies that many adore.
By the same token, professional critics and audiences don’t always agree on what makes a good movie. It’s entirely normal to see a movie that is a box office hit that receives broad audience support get lambasted by critics. By the same token, many of the movies that critics adore are regularly ignored by audiences. This is why the newest addition to Disney+ Out of My Mind, which includes Jennifer Aniston in its cast, is such a usual film.
Out Of Mind Has Won Over Critics And Fans
As of this writing, Out of My Mind, a new film that hit Disney+ last week is currently sitting with a perfect 100% score among critics on Rotten Tomatoes, with an equally impressive 94% among the audience that has a Disney+ subscription. It’s a rare feat for a film to achieve such universal acclaim, but then Out of My Mind is a fairly rare movie.
Out of My Mind, based on the novel of the same name, is the story of Melody Broks a sixth grader who is confined to a wheelchair and non-verbal due to cerebral palsy. While Melody has difficulty communicating, she’s no less intelligent than her peers, and smarter than most, which leads to her getting the opportunity to step away from special education and attend regular sixth-grade classes.
Since the character is non-verbal, Melody’s inner thoughts are narrated to us by Jennifer Aniston (a meta move as Melody is a fan of Friends) and thus tells us that she chooses to sound like Aniston because, with no voice of her own, she can sound however she likes.
Out Of My Mind Will Win You Over Too
Out of My Mind was a hit at the Sundance Film Festival, leading to Disney picking up the film. It’s a feel-good emotional story of dealing with adversity, making it fit right in with projects we expect from Disney. But there’s more going on with this one than just a tugging at the heartstrings.
What sets Out of My Mind apart from most stories of disability on the big screen is that the film stars a disabled actress. Phoebe-Rae Taylor is making her film debut as Melody and Taylor also has cerebral palsy. Rather than an actor pretending to deal with the disability and trying to understand what that’s like, the actor here has an intimate knowledge of how it all works.
While it’s unlikely that Out of My Mind will retain its perfect critics score forever, because, again, nobody agrees on everything, what’s clear is that the film is special and that almost anybody who sees it will be glad they did.
