Emotional and involving yet also clear-eyed and with a cool wisdom, Janet Grillo’s Fly Away is a sharply observed and strongly acted tale of a mother learning to allow her autistic teenage daughter to transition into the adult world. Beth Broderick plays Jeanne, a single mom with her own home-office corporate consulting business. Ashley Rickards is her daughter Mandy, and the two have a tight, well-ordered relationship, with Jeanne trying to grow her business during the day while Mandy attends a special needs school. But when Mandy begins a series of violent outbursts at that school, Jeanne’s almost preternatural composure […]
by Scott Macaulay on Apr 15, 2011Janet Grillo, a producer (Autism: The Musical, Searching for Paradise), former New Line executive, and writer/director (the short, Flying Lessons), has directed her first feature, Fly Away. From the film’s website: Based on the award-winning short Flying Lessons, Fly Away tells the moving story of a single mother, Jeanne, grappling with the challenge of raising her autistic teenage daughter, Mandy. As Mandy becomes more and more unmanageable, so too does Jeanne?s life. Over the period of two weeks, Jeanne is confronted with the most difficult decision a parent can make: to let go, allowing her child to grow, but also […]
by Scott Macaulay on Dec 22, 2010