Movie Review: 'A Boy Called Po'

I must be getting soft as I get older because movies like A Boy Called Po never used to get passed my ironic armor. As a younger critic, a movie like A Boy Called Po with a premise that reads like a Lifetime Movie and a cast lacking star power would have been one I would dismiss without a glance. Admittedly, I used to be kind of arrogant and quite snobbish. It could be I have become more evolved and mature or it could be that director John Asher’s inspired by true events movie is actually so good that I had no need for my emotional armor.

A Boy Called Po stars 12-year-old Julian Feder as Patrick, or Po, as his father David (Christopher Gorham) calls him. Po is autistic and his father is struggling to care for him in the wake of the death of Po’s mother from a battle with cancer. On top of being a single father to an autistic son, David has a high-pressure job as an engineer for an airplane company and is attempting to craft a brand new, more environmentally friendly airplane.

At school, Po is being bullied by a much larger boy in his class and the bullying plus the absence of his mother is causing him to "drift." Drifting is when an Autistic person, most often a child, begins losing touch with reality for long stretches of time. This concept is explained by Amy (Caitlin Doubleday), Po’s physical therapist and David’s appointed love interest. Here is where director Asher and screenwriter Colin Goldman take a big risk. No, not the stock romance, the presentation of Po’s "drift."

A Boy Called Po attempts to demonstrate where Po goes when he drifts. Their idea is that he is becoming lost in a fantasy world where he has a pair of friends played by Andrew Bowen and Caitlin Carmichael. Bowen and Carmichael give lovely, graceful performances with just the right amount of whimsy and empathy. These are not easy roles to play as portraying an autistic boy’s fantasy friends is not a casual notion. Some people with experience with autistic children may find this portrayal a little iffy. I found it to be sweet, if a little uncomfortable.

Julian Feder is tremendous as Po. Both director John Asher and screenwriter Colin Goldman have autistic children of their own, but it takes a special young actor to embody autism without seemingly cloying or tipping off their mimicry. Feder gives an authentic and powerfully moving performance that never misses a step. There is a reason there aren’t many mainstream features about kids with autism; it’s because there are few young as talented as Julian Feder to play them.

There are awkward aspects of A Boy Called Po such as the handling of the bullying plot. The young man playing the bully is directed far too obviously evil, with no nuance and next to no characterization. The way the school reacts to the bullying seems downright silly as it plays out with teachers portrayed much like the bully character, obliviously evil. The plot is discarded at the end of the film in an unsatisfying bit of dialogue that dispenses the plot without an onscreen resolution.

There are also times when Christopher Gorham’s put-upon father character has the odds stacked so highly against him with a series of bad luck that it stretches credulity but Gorham is a strong guide through these few awkward moments. I also enjoyed the ways in which the movie subverts expectations in a few scenes such as when David is pulled over by police while arguing with Po in the car or as in a performance by veteran character actor Bryan Batt who could have been a stock villain but isn’t.

A Boy Called Po is far from perfect but it’s still a lovely, highly emotional story that snuck past my Gen-X honed snarkiness to really move me. I don’t know anyone with autism so I don’t have a personal connection to relate to A Boy Called Po and yet I felt completely connected to Po via Julian Feder’s wonderful performance. That performance alone is great enough for me to recommend A Boy Called Po which debuts On-Demand on September 1.