A Night Out, and Movie Review: “My Brother”
Did basic paperwork straightening yesterday — updating job search files, searching for records needed for a job interview, looked for jobs. Courtney arrived in the evening for library returns — when we arrived, we found the library closed. Dropped off books, went out to dinner at Marie Callender’s — I had soup, sandwich and garlic fries — and with Courtney lamented the inability to drink, we went out afterward and had a drink close to home.
Courtney left, and I settled down to watch my most recent Netflix, a movie I’ve seen in the stores and been wanting to watch called My Brother. If you want to watch it, as I did, for the performances of actual disabled people in disabled roles, then you will be rewarded, as the two Down Syndrome actors do an excellent job. However, the story itself has several routes and doesn’t go successfully down any of them. And I reveal SPOILERS below.
The DVD box advertises that this is the story of two brothers — Isaiah and James, who has Down Syndrome, living in a poor neighborhood with gang related violence. I assumed, since the two actors are black, that the gang voilence would be because Isaiah got invited to join a gang. Wrong. In place of gang, read “the mob.” Isaiah, upset that James has a steady job (which Isaiah himself does not actually appear to have) and needing money, is convinced by a friend to enlist the help of the mob and become a delivery man for packages.
Now there are two options here: explore the idea that James, who has some living skills difficulties (such as putting cereal and newspaper in the fridge) appears more capable than his brother. Or, instead, does Isaiah debate and choose the mob over his brother and then regret the decision? Does he debate it?
Actually, no. Isaiah agrees at once that he needs the money for the rent, despite the fact that every time we see his friend and himself they are out drinking, and there seems to be no pressing need at home for money. In one scene, Isaiah is found drunk on the floor by James, who attempts to help him up and then gives up in disgust and says he’s a baby.
Well, even though the film shows that Isaiah is in general patient and caring with his brother, in this case, I’m inclined to agree with James. Isaiah rages that he’s tired of taking care of James. Which makes sense, but appears misplaced in the story.
Alll right, so James goes to the mob, is given instructions about package delivery — which he ignores through the rest of the movie. And not just a I’m too busy for this, but as if he’s forgotten about the job altogether. He goes to a party, retrieves the package and is spotted doing so by a woman — aha, I thought, a plant by the mob — but sadly, no. Even though James and friend speculate her motives, in the next scene with her, she has turned into Isaiah’s new girlfriend. In the scene that makes the most sense here, James is jealous and wants his brother to himself, and Isaiah, patient and distracted, shows the woman out.
She becomes angry and walks out, never to be seen again.
Now this makes a little sense. James is an embarrassment as a brother — but Isaiah doesn’t seem to mind at all. Well, all right.
Isaiah doesn’t wonder about the package — we don’t see the contents, or where he put it — and except for one scene with James, he doesn’t even search for it or wonder where it went. Notes come from the mob, and he ignores these too.
A long series of flashbacks occur — the best involve the young Isaiah and James, expecially when Isaiah feels compelled to get beaten up in place of his brother, or when James calls all the men on the street Daddy — but his mother has pulmonary tuberculosis….
Yes — the 19th-century favorite for dying mothers. Possible even today, in America, so all right. I let that one slide. Naturally, the mother decides that she should share her wisdom with Isaiah as the new man of the family — and she does so, for a very long scene, which she whacks him for swearing (oddly enough, the swearing was appropriate), then instructs him, among other things, never to hit a woman and always to have respect for women.
I’m sorry — didn’t she just hit him? And his swearing wasn’t even directed at her. It might have been better if he copied what some thug said out on the street, but all right, no swearing in the house. Fair enough.
Then the movie goes overboard, with enough “remember this” remarks to gag a horse. But Isaiah, played very well by the actor — is a quiet, thoughtful, reasoning boy — makes you wonder where his patient, misguided older self lost his way — and he accepts all this and never protests taking care of James. There is a good line where Isaiah tells James Mama is going on a trip, and the boys go to the hospital to see her before she expires, still spouting wisdom like a good 19th-century dying woman should.
It’s clear that the time period in this is modern, by the way, though here again, what’s happening gets confused. I’m assuming the characters are late teens-30 years old. Yet when the heart of the movie begins — when the boys are separated by the court — Isaiah is sent to a strict prison-like school while James is sent to the “Willowgreen” institution on Stanton Island.
Here I started laughing.
The Willowbrook instution on Stanton Island existed until 1987 — its most publicly-known case is probably Geraldo Riveria’s expose in the 1970’s about living conditions there (which this film recreates almost frame-by-frame fasion in a sense (children half-clothed, nothing to do, rocking, humming, sitting under tables, etc.)). Its other well-known case is a series of “informed consent” medical experiments, where children were purposely infected with hepetitis. Institions do actually still exist — and there was a modern expose on one in Mother Jones that would have made an interested illustration here — but much less common.
So after a short scene in which we are introduced to Isaiah in his new school, politely asking to go to the bathroom to a rather bored teacher, until he pees all over the floor…But wait, isn’t this supposed to be a school for delinquints, or at least, children no one cares for? Why are they sitting silently? Why isn’t someone whispering or throwing something? Are they too frightened? The film doesn’t say. They behave better than most classrooms.
So Isaiah decides that he must go fetch his brother, because he promised Mama. All right. Next scene shows him over the barbed wire fence at night…
Well, yes, night would be better for visibility and yes, the children’s playtime outside could have very well been non-existant, so all right, at night.
Isaiah promptly finds himself inside and by not saying anything, is taken for disabled and thus shown into the dormitory, where the children are sleeping.
I’m sorry? Didn’t the institution lock the doors at night? I can buy that overworked staff wouldn’t look at the children long enough to know there’s one extra, because written accounts say that if you were quiet, you generally got better treatment, but there should have been numerous buildings with several floors and wards. How did Isaiah find the right one?
Isaiah finds his brother and the narration concludes that they stayed togerher.
Now wait just a moment. There’s an opportunity, and the film doesn’t take it. How did they stay together? In the charactor of Isaiah, the patient observer, more time should have been spent revealing daily life. Did they escape? How did Isaiah escape with his brother ? (And yes, The Wizard and Rain Man aside, that might have been overdone). Did they age out of the system? Since Isaiah adapts so well to environments — he’s so used to his brother that he doesn’t even flinch at the other disabled children or their horrible conditions — it would have been entertaining to see his adaptation to the institution. That would have been something to see. In fact, since the boys are poor, it actually would not have been unusal for Isaiah to have been placed there with James, a ready source of intelligent labor to help run the place.
But there the flashbacks end, and there, I believe is where the most interesting thing in the story lies. How did Isaiah get to the institution? What people did he meet along the way? Was he afraid of being caught? And so on. More questions than answers.
While Isaiah flees from the mob, leaving James with the instructions that the friend will come look after him (something that seems highly unlikely), the mob of course arrives to find James as collatral. They don’t rough him up too badly — there’s actually a lot more shoving around. Isaiah, on a ridiculous search for a man who might be his father — returns at the end to find his brother, and to tell him that wherever he is, that’s where home will be.
Aww…
The problem with this is, a) Isaiah really didn’t need to go looking for a potential father, here, especially since it doesn’t work out, and b) he LEFT James to the mob. If they escaped from Willowgreen, wouldn’t he already have adapted to taking James on the road with him? If they didn’t escape, wouldn’t he have learned strategies from that? And another thing, they leave the neighborhood in the end, but James is the only one with a job. I guess they’re going out in the world to starve, but hey, they’ll be together while doing it.
It does make you wonder. If the film started somewhere close to where the boys were seperated, I think it would have been better. They didn’t need to be adults. Even though Isaiah’s frustration makes sense, his journey is when he willingly goes into the institution…not when he’s an adult, playing around with the mob. He decided at that point to be with his brother and continue protecting him — and he actually fails at this when he runs from the mob. All other parts, including the girlfriend, the mob, the possible-father, are unneccessary, and should not be there. Though the film should be commended for their use of actual disabled actors — something which I hope to see more of in films — I sincerely wish they had chosen a different route for their story. I would have enjoyed much more.