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It's a question that has troubled Thomas, who is about to turn 16, for years. "Do you ever wish Charlie was normal?" he asks his father in the dramedy "The Black Balloon."
Charlie is Thomas' autistic brother, who recently ran into a stranger's house to use the upstairs bathroom, mistook a feminine hygiene product for candy and had to be dragged out of the supermarket after getting hysterical at the checkout.
The boys' father says he did wish Charlie were normal at the start, but he doesn't think about it much anymore.
"Charlie's Charlie," he reasons. Besides, his wife believes they were given Charlie because they're capable and strong enough to handle him.
From what we see in "The Black Balloon," they need to be capable, strong, patient and thick-skinned, all the while settling into a new house and preparing for the birth of a third child. In other words, they need to be as nimble and optimistic as wire-walker Philippe Petit as they navigate their little corner of Australia.
- Starring: Toni Collette, Rhys Wakefield, Luke Ford
- Rating: PG-13 for some sexual content, a scene of violence, and brief strong language
- Web site: theblackballoonmovie.com
But when the expectant mother ends up in the hospital on bed rest, much of the responsibility for Charlie falls to Thomas, who loves his brother but is regularly embarrassed, outraged, aggravated and frustrated by him.
Charlie has ADD in addition to autism and no longer talks, instead using rudimentary sign language to communicate. It's a physical challenge to hold him down so someone can shoot a syringe of medicine into his mouth or to chase after him when he finds an unlocked door and sprints down the street in his undies.
"Black Balloon" builds to a crescendo with a party that takes a sharp, unexpected descent into chaos, anger and confrontation. Once the movie goes over those rapids, so to speak, it enters calmer waters with some scenes that flirt with being treacly or (in the case of the closing one) just plain are.
Director and co-writer Elissa Down grew up with two autistic brothers and based Charlie on the younger one, down to his tendency to run into other people's houses or to play with his feces. She doesn't sugarcoat Thomas' desire to have a brother who is just like everyone else, but she also dramatizes the joy that Charlie brings to the family.
Down is blessed with a dream cast, starting with Luke Ford as Charlie, Rhys Wakefield as Thomas, Toni Collette and Erik Thomson as their parents, and model turned actress Gemma Ward as Jackie, one of Thomas' classmates who is almost too good to be true.
Collette, stunning in Showtime's "United States of Tara," is excellent, but the burden is carried by the younger actors. Ford, who played the budding archaeologist son in "Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor," spent hours observing the director's younger brother, feigning stiffness in his limbs and doing everyday tasks in character.
It paid off in a depiction that feels harrowing, heartbreaking and authentic, but Wakefield manages to make his brother equally conflicted and compelling.
"The Black Balloon," which opens Friday at the Harris Theater, doesn't flinch from what it means to be Charlie's brother or Charlie. "He will never get a job, have a family or be able to look after himself," Collette's character says.
She is clear-eyed about Charlie but, like any mother, lovingly looks at him through rose-colored glasses. Which is just as it should be.
