After decades of struggle, there’s finally emerging awareness
of the value of women sharing our experiences, insights and wisdom through
filmmaking. But like many others, I know better than to wait for corporate
entertainment to hand me a golden ticket. The thrilling opportunity of low-budget, independent filmmaking is you don’t need one. What you do need is a
story that shares a truth, and the passionate drive to tell it. With the indie
feature film “Jack of the Red Hearts,” I’ve had an opportunity to do
just that.
“Jack of the Red Hearts” tells the story of a
teenage con artist, played by AnnaSophia Robb, who convinces the desperate mother of a child with severe autism, played by Famke Janssen, to hire her as a live-in caregiver for her daughter (newcomer Taylor Richardson).
The script is written by Jennifer Deaton, the
aunt of a niece with autism. I’m the mother of a child with it, too. Through this fictional
story — this fantasy — we share a reality: what it means to live with and
love a child with profound challenges. The impact it has on siblings, on a
marriage. How that challenge can crash us into our lowest depths, and how that love
can raise us to our highest selves — often in rapid alternation.
Most films and TV shows portray the small
percentage of people with autism who are intellectually gifted, misleading the
general public to think of most as “quirky geniuses” who’ll end up in
Silicon Valley. In fact, many if not more resemble the child in our film, who
is functionally non-verbal. Autism is a lifelong condition; children outlive
their caregivers, yet few achieve independence. Today, one percent of Americans
have it; 1 in 58 children. And there’s no sign it’s letting up. Is it an
epidemic? We don’t know. But we do know it’s a national crisis.
