David

this is one of the best movies i have EVER seen. not just tv movie. movie period. go to amazon. go to ebay. and buy this movie. its absolutly brilliant. and kirstie alley is indescrible..

kirstie alley plays sally goodson. a lonely,self deprecating woman that has spent her whole life taking..well the last 16 years of her life taking care of her autistic son david. over those years shes let go of things she didnt mean to. her marriage,her life,and even her older daughter all because she wanted to tend to her sons everyday needs. not only because she liked it,but because it made her feel like a whole person. thats something shes never felt before. Her sister played by stockard channing decides that she needs to meet people and get out more so she introduces her to John,played by Sam Waterson. He wants to help her,and love her but shes afraid...shes afraid to love someone and get intimate and she doesnt want anyone to help her take care of david. While this going on a social worker catches up with the fact that david needs to be in a home,or a place to take better care of him that sally is. Theres just so much she can do to help him. Shes trying to prevent this from happening because the last thing she wants is to loose him,she would fall apart..

I cant tell anyone enough about this movie and most importantly about kirstie alley. shes my favorite actress ever and in this movie you really can see what she can do. just coming off of cheers in 1994 when this movie was made she recieved a well deserved emmy. i beg you to see this movie. its amazing.

I am watching this film at the moment on channel 61, At the point where Sally and John have the row about her leaving and not telling him, the actor changes and so does his clothes! Suddenly a much younger man is in place of John wearing a white cable knit sweater. This happens three times and then Sally becomes a younger version of herself, different hairstyle, makeup and clothes!

I am puzzled as to how this film, that has received such great reviews and nominations for the acting, can be so badly edited. I have found this so distracting I had to break away and look the film up to see if anyone else has noticed this.

Otherwise, it is a good film but I am being penickity perhaps.

I must confess to a partiality for this type of film and did enjoy this one. However, I found it too much on the negative side and with a too low feelgood factor. I thought that David's "performance" was excellent and extremely realistic ( I am assuming the actor concerned is not autistic in real life ) but I thought that David's mother, as personnified by Kirstie Alley, went a bit over the top. Of course, the situation is difficult to live but one cannot even detect a glimmer of hope in Alley's attitude towards John who was an extremely kind and understanding man and willing to tackle the problem of David. All the mother can do is tell him to get lost ! - it's pushing the negative dramatic element too far in the direction of pessimism. Of course it must be very difficult to bring up a child like David, but one would have thought that John's presence would change things for the better. One saw this very briefly with David learning to operate the VCR but the optimism stops there.

It's all well and good trying to be acutely realistic and doubtless this film corresponds perfectly to real live situations which have been lived. But I think that Cinema is there to make us dream, albeit only a little in some cases, and the viewer needs some "positive elements" to enable him/her to feel good about watching the film. After all, it IS a film and not a real-life documentary.

Basically, one is left with a bitter aftertaste in one's mouth because of Kirstie Alley's boorish, offhand and uncompromising attitude with all those around her. One would have expected this attitude of course to dominate initially but to gradually disappear as the story unfolds throughout the film. Unfortunately this does not seem to be the case and whilst there is a minimum of gratitude on the part of Alley towards the John element, one feels that deep down she has not really changed that much and intends to continue as before. Big deal !

So, all in all, good acting ( beautiful actors, John is very handsome and Kirstie Alley, when properly dressed up is pretty sexy ( for me, at least !! ), but an overly negative storyline which could have been improved upon without going too much in the other direction !

...in a movie! I am a mom of a severely autistic child, and I get so frustrated with films that only portray autism with savant abilities or high functioning autism. If severe autism is portrayed in a movie, the child some how is miraculously cured and the viewer can walk away feeling happy. I've seen other reviewers comment that they didn't like this one because it isn't happy. But this one is more realistic. This movie did an excellent job showing what it is like to have a child with severe autism and how it affects the whole family. The isolation and loneliness is real, because many times taking a severely autistic child new places is very stressful and anxiety provoking, so something that was supposed to be fun, isn't fun at all, and it becomes easier to keep things familiar and routine to keep the peace. Which was exactly what Sally was doing with David. It wasn't laziness or being a recluse, it is surviving and getting through the day, I completely understood it.

The young man who played David did an incredible job playing a severely autistic boy. I saw so much of my daughter in his repetitive movements, facial expressions, and outbursts. I saw another reviewer call these temper tantrums. They are NOT tantrums, it's a meltdown or an outburst, due to the frustration of not being able to communicate or from overstimulation of the sensory system. Again, the movie and the actor portrayed this very well.

One thing I didn't like about the movie was the "all or nothing" approach to David's care. I didn't understand why he couldn't be in a day program and then be at home. That way they could help him with learning and developing skills during the day and then he could be home with his family. I didn't understand why being institutionalized was the only option. Of course, sometimes that is the best option, but usually that is if their care has become too difficult to manage at home, and that wasn't the case here. A day program would give mom a much needed break and give David learning and social opportunities, and he could still stay at home with his family.

Overall, great performances by all the actors, and I applaud the filmmakers for showing the reality of severe autism and how it affects not only that individual but the entire family. I encourage people to watch this film to get a glimpse into the lives of those with severe autism. Not only for a realistic portrayal of the hardships, but how any accomplishment, no matter how small (like David working the VCR), is worthy of celebration.

Although Kirstie Alley is normally a very good actress, in THIS particular production, I found her to be rude, obnoxious, and a down-right SLOB. She is so bitter that she relies on sarcasm to get her through life. Her son is Autistic, she's a Pig....how's that for a summary?

Her sister (portrayed by the ALWAYS-wonderful Stockard Channing) decides it's time for Kirstie Alley's character to meet a man. This is depsite the fact that her home is a pig-sty and she looks like a bag lady...

She is introduced to a character named John Nils, portrayed by the EVEN MORE ALWAYS WONDERFUL Sam Waterston. He is sweet, gentle, kind, and bloody beautiful. He tries his heart out to help her change her attitude towards her handicapped child, and give him a chance to get some treatment, as well as enter a program for children with Autism. Of course this enrages Ms. Alley's character. However, after bedding down with Mr. Nils (Mr. Waterston looks divine in a black velour bathrobe), she realizes he's right about her kid - but wrong for her....naaaah. She doesn't love him enough to stay with him. And she decides to tell him this in his store. What a TERRIFIC CHICK this is...of course, he loves HER, so you can see the pain in his eyes when she tells him, for all intents and purposes, that it's over between them...

In my personal opinion, I was kinda hoping they'd commit HER along with her poor son. She was simply boorish, and of course wasn't helping the poor boy anyway.

I came away from this with a "yecch" expression. If you're going to put someone opposite the ever kind/generous/loving/extremely talented Sam Waterston, let it NOT be Kirstie Alley. If only they'd allowed Stockard Channing to play the part, the whole movie would've had much more class to it..