PG | 1h 35min | Drama | 2008
Ellen, however, doesn’t give up. Her desperation leads her to research his symptoms and to get Brad’s doctor to, sheepishly, confirm her diagnosis. Brad is told there’s no cure. His newfound understanding of himself, however, helps others, especially Norman, to better understand him. At one support group meeting, Brad sees those like him resigned to their fate because they’re alienated by those who fear or fault them. Children stay at home, adults are out of work. Brad resolves to live a full and fulfilled life.
Supported by Ellen, the adult Brad (James Wolk) courageously and cheerfully gets through college, hoping to become a schoolteacher. Still, thanks to his tics, potential hirers can’t get past first interviews, and prospective girlfriends can’t get past first dates. They figure that he can control himself and simply needs to behave. Several nerve-wracking interviews later, one school picks him as a teacher to second graders. One date, Nancy (Sarah Drew) picks him as a friend. Brad quickly endears himself to colleagues and students, teaching both to be curious about, and accepting of his condition. When his contract comes up for renewal, a teaching standards inspector arrives to decide whether he’s made the grade as teacher.
The winsome Kay and the astonishingly charming Wolk pull off riveting performances as both boy and man, as they are ravaged by rejection. Both actors portray a rare and difficult condition as if it’s second nature. The actors take turns to tell Brad’s story for the first half of the film before Wolk takes over. You care for Brad from the first scene.
To Teach Well
Brad’s family finds it hard enough to accept him because he’s so different. They’re often embarrassed or angered by his tics in public: restaurants, ball games, movie theaters. Others just find it harder, forced to indulge him more out of fear of falling foul of the Americans with Disabilities Act than out of empathy.
Poignantly, Werner uses Brad’s class of precocious students to mirror Brad’s condition. At one level, the camera considers the whole group as one organism. They’re a bit like the mouth, hands, legs, and torso of a body, obedient to the head, embodied in Brad.
At another level, sometimes one body part, embodied in the chubby but distracted little Thomas, disobeys the mind, as if it has a life of its own. Brad must remind Thomas repeatedly not to get up without permission. That’s a bit like Brad’s disobedient jaw or neck or tongue. No matter how hard he privately orders them to be still, they’re restless, when they must be attentive.
One character stuns Brad, at his wits end with repeated failure, by telling him that his gift for teaching isn’t despite his Tourette Syndrome, but because of it. Later Brad explains to a crucial job interview panel how the best teachers help children learn even if they’re more playful or slower to grasp concepts than other children. He describes how empathy is central to teaching and admits who inspired him to be a teacher, “I had an inspiring Principal, but my teachers only inspired me to be the kind they never were. In a way, the best teacher I had was my Tourette’s.”
