The film, Autism: The Musical helped me understand the character of Christopher, from the book The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, by showing the effect that autism can have on everyone who is connected to the autistic child. I believe the film was able to show in greater detail the difficulties that the families must face, especially the hardships faced by the parents, than what Christopher is able to explain in the book. The parents in the movie and Christopher’s parents in the book are compelling examples of how the all-encompassing attention that needs to be given to an autistic child can lead to one parent feeling like they can’t do anything right and the other parent feeling like they have to do everything. It stands to reason that under that kind of burden, if the problems within the relationship aren’t addressed and are just allowed to continue to fester, eventually the relationship between the couple will break.
The struggles that Lexi’s parents endured seemed to mirror some of Christopher’s parents’ problems. Both of Lexi’s mother and Christopher’s mother suffered bouts of severe depression that left them unable to care for their children and in both cases, the fathers stepped in to take over parenting duties. The obvious difference in these cases, though, was that when the parents separated, Lexi’s mother, Hillary, remained with Lexi, where Christopher’s mother was the one who left the home and her child. It was interesting to note that in neither case were the parents able to, or possibly willing to, go to as great of lengths to save their marriage as they were willing to get help and services for their children. It appeared to truly be a case of putting the child’s needs ahead of everything else.
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