Temple Grandin (film)
Encyclopedia
Temple Grandin is a 2010 biopic directed by Mick Jackson and starring Claire Danes
as Temple Grandin
, a woman with autism
who revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouse
s.
to "gentle them". One day, while having a panic attack
, Temple places herself in the device and it immediately calms her down.
When Temple first attended college, she was very nervous when she moved into her college dorm. Temple had another panic attack in her room, but her mother gave her space by closing the door. Immediately after, her mother had a flashback to when Temple was little and had relentless tantrums. Before that, Temple was diagnosed with classic autism, a severe case of autism in which she seemed aloof, lacked eye contact, had no language, and avoided human affection and touch.
At this time, science classified autism as a form of schizophrenia
, blaming mothers as the cause for the disorder and claiming that they were cold and aloof toward their autistic child, naming them "refrigerator mother
s". The diagnostician suggested placing Temple in an institution. Temple's mother refused to listen to the diagnostician and helped Temple adapt to the everyday world. Her mother hired a speech therapist, who worked one-on-one with Temple and enabled her to acquire language.
During Temple's college years, she conceptualized the squeeze machine, which was designed for herself because she had a sensory integration dysfunction
and disliked physical affection by people. The machine hugs both sides of her to calm her down, as she controls the pressure, and it makes her relaxed whenever she becomes tense.
Even though the machine worked, the school forced Temple to remove it, claiming that it was some kind of sexual device. Later after spring break ended, Temple and her aunt came back to school to persuade the school to let her use the device. Temple later proved through rigorous scientific study that the machine was only a calming device and, as a result, she was allowed to keep it. She uses this machine for self-medicating reasons ever since.
Later on, the movie flashes back to when Temple was just being admitted to Hampshire Country School
. She was expelled from her previous high school because a child taunted her and she hit him with a book. There, she meets a supportive teacher, Dr. Carlock, who encourages her to go further into science as a career and to eventually attend college.
Temple does indeed graduate from college and becomes a worker at a ranch. She rebuilds a new dip, and alters a slaughterhouse for cows so that it is much more humane. The film concludes with an autism fair convention, which Temple and her mother attend.
Temple speaks out from the crowd and tells the audience how she overcame her difficulties and was able to achieve academically, as well as how her mother helped her deal with the everyday world. The people become so fascinated that they request Temple to speak in front of the auditorium.
, a successful talent agent
and a co-founder of the nonprofit Autism Coalition for Research and Education (now part of Autism Speaks
). In the mid-1990s, Gerson Saines was a vice-president at the William Morris Agency
when her 2-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. She learned about Grandin soon afterward, when her mother told her about seeing Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures in a bookstore and, around the same time, her grandmother independently sent her an article about Grandin by Oliver Sacks
.
Reading about Grandin renewed Gerson Saines' "energy, motivation and spirit" in coping with her son's condition. "Temple's story brought me hope and (her mother)'s story gave me direction and purpose," Gerson Saines said in a later interview. "Parents of a child with autism everywhere need to hear it, functionally and spiritually. I knew this story had to be told and given my access as a talent representative in the entertainment industry, I felt it was my responsibility to make that happen." Through Grandin's agent, Gerson Saines asked to meet Grandin for lunch. "She came in wearing her cowgirl shirt—-in her very Temple way, in her very Temple walk. I realized that there were people staring at her, and in a different lifetime I might have been one of them, but all I could think of was, 'I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. This woman's my hero.'"
Grandin was familiar with Gerson Saines' work with the Autism Coalition and granted her permission to make the film, but the endeavor—first launched in the late 1990s—would take more than ten years to come to fruition. Variety
reported in 2002 that David O. Russell
was attached to direct the film from a screenplay by Merritt Johnson (adapting from Grandin's memoirs Emergence
and Thinking in Pictures). Russell later dropped out and was replaced by Moises Kaufman
, who also left the project. By 2008, director Mick Jackson had taken the helm and Claire Danes was in negotiations to star as Grandin. Johnson's script had been replaced by one from Christopher Monger
(both Johnson and Monger are credited as writers of the finished film).
One element Gerson Saines was sure about from the beginning was that she wanted to work with HBO, in part because of her longstanding relationship with the network through her work as an agent. "But I also knew that by going that route, more people will see it," she said. "When you're trying to make a movie like this," it's very rare that it reaches a wide audience." HBO was equally intrigued by the story, and Gerson Saines credits past and present HBO executives with keeping the project alive until it could be properly realized. "I made a commitment to Temple that I was going to make it and make it right...I never pushed to get it made until now, because now we got it right."
Jackson knew early on that Danes was his first choice to portray Grandin, believing that Danes' seriousness and dedication would help her to capture Grandin's mercurial mental and emotional shifts without veering the film into disease-of-the-week melodrama. Danes herself was coming off a string of more lightweight roles (whose "primary job and experience [was] to become gaga over a man," she described) and eager to take on a more demanding part. Although she was only vaguely aware of Grandin at the time, Danes dove into research, including watching documentaries about Grandin and studying Grandin's books and recordings. "It was really daunting, because she's alive and has a great eye for detail," Danes said. The two women spent about six hours together in Danes' apartment, ending with a hug from Grandin ("For her, that's not easy," Danes observed), which Danes was glad to take as validation that Grandin approved of her for the role.
in Austin, Texas
. The film was noted for filming in Texas at a time when TV and film production had grown scarce in the state, and legislators were seeking to expand financial incentives to draw more film crews. Grandin producer Scott Ferguson
said that Arizona, New Mexico and Canada had all been considered before producers had chosen Texas, in part because different areas of the state could be used to represent the rural West and New England. Ferguson also credited the abundance of trained film crews in the Austin and Dallas regions as a significant benefit to shooting in the area.
Gerson Saines brought Grandin to observe the last day of shooting, which was a scene involving a cattle dip tank that Grandin had designed. Although Grandin said that she tried to stay away from Danes to avoid impinging on her performance, she was quite concerned about the proper construction of the tank and about the breed of cattle being used in the scene. "I thought, we can't have a silly thing like that City Slickers
movie, where they had Holstein cattle out there," Grandin said. "If you know anything about cattle, you'd know that was stupid." She said watching Danes on the monitors was "like going back in a weird time machine to the '60s."
, in a screening attended by Grandin. A trailer was previewed for critics during their winter press tour on January 14; critics responded positively to "the film's bright palette and inventive direction."
HBO and bookstore chain Barnes & Noble
partnered to promote both the film and Grandin's books, displaying information about autism and the film in all Barnes & Noble stores and creating a free downloadable coloring book about Grandin, using illustrations by autistic artists. Grandin appeared for a special book signing, discussion and preview of the film at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble on January 25.
score of 84/100 (averaged from 19 critical reviews). Entertainment Weekly
s Jennifer Armstrong wrote, "The beauty of [the film] is that it makes the title character's autism — and the unique insight it gave her into livestock psychology — relatable to anyone with a heart, and fascinating to anyone with a brain. The fact that it does so with such a singular story only makes the movie that much greater."
Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times
called it "a made for-television biopic that avoids the mawkish clichés of the genre without draining the narrative of color and feeling. Ms. Danes is completely at ease in her subject's lumbering gait and unmodulated voice. She makes Temple’s anxiety as immediate and contagious as her rarer bursts of merriment... And as the character ages and learns more social graces, Ms. Danes seamlessly captures Temple's progress."
Robert Bianco of USA Today
wrote that unlike many other HBO productions, "Temple is an incredibly joyous and often humorous film." While praising the direction and the strong supporting cast of Catherine O'Hara, David Strathairn, and Julia Ormond, Bianco declared that "as good as everything is around them, Temple Grandin belongs to two women: the real Temple, who appears to be a spectacular human being, and Danes, who is clearly a spectacular actor." The AV Club's Noel Murray, himself the father of an autistic son, wrote that "some of the movie's aesthetic choices border on the cliché. The pulsing minimalism of Alex Wurman's score has become as much a shorthand for 'intellectual mystery' as Arabic wailing has for 'Danger! Terrorists!,' and Temple Grandins illustrative animated sequences run a little too close to A Beautiful Mind
for my taste." However, Murray gave the film an A-, in part for Danes' success in portraying Grandin as a full-fledged personality instead of "a checklist of symptoms gleaned from a medical journal."
NPR
's David Bianculli unambiguously named the film "the best tele-movie of the past several years... I can't praise this movie highly enough. It's not maudlin or sentimental, but it is excitingly inspirational. It scores big emotional points with very small touches, the sound of a heartbeat, a tentative touch, a victorious smile. The acting, writing, directing, production values, every sight and every sound in HBO's Temple Grandin is perfect."
Claire Danes
Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
as Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin
Temple Grandin is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior...
, a woman with autism
Autism
Autism is a disorder of neural development characterized by impaired social interaction and communication, and by restricted and repetitive behavior. These signs all begin before a child is three years old. Autism affects information processing in the brain by altering how nerve cells and their...
who revolutionized practices for the humane handling of livestock on cattle ranches and slaughterhouse
Slaughterhouse
A slaughterhouse or abattoir is a facility where animals are killed for consumption as food products.Approximately 45-50% of the animal can be turned into edible products...
s.
Plot synopsis
The biography film starts off with Temple visiting her aunt for the summer and working on her ranch. Temple had always been fascinated by animals because they "thought like her" and she seems very interested in a device that hugs the cowsCattle crush
A cattle crush , squeeze chute , standing stock, or simply stock is a strongly built stall or cage for holding cattle, horses, or other livestock safely while they are examined, marked, or given veterinary treatment. Cows may be made to suckle calves in a crush...
to "gentle them". One day, while having a panic attack
Panic attack
Panic attacks are periods of intense fear or apprehension that are of sudden onset and of relatively brief duration. Panic attacks usually begin abruptly, reach a peak within 10 minutes, and subside over the next several hours...
, Temple places herself in the device and it immediately calms her down.
When Temple first attended college, she was very nervous when she moved into her college dorm. Temple had another panic attack in her room, but her mother gave her space by closing the door. Immediately after, her mother had a flashback to when Temple was little and had relentless tantrums. Before that, Temple was diagnosed with classic autism, a severe case of autism in which she seemed aloof, lacked eye contact, had no language, and avoided human affection and touch.
At this time, science classified autism as a form of schizophrenia
Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a mental disorder characterized by a disintegration of thought processes and of emotional responsiveness. It most commonly manifests itself as auditory hallucinations, paranoid or bizarre delusions, or disorganized speech and thinking, and it is accompanied by significant social...
, blaming mothers as the cause for the disorder and claiming that they were cold and aloof toward their autistic child, naming them "refrigerator mother
Refrigerator mother
The term refrigerator mother was coined around 1950 as a label for mothers of children diagnosed with autism or schizophrenia. These mothers were often blamed for their children's atypical behavior, which included rigid rituals, speech difficulty, and self-isolation.The "refrigerator mother" label...
s". The diagnostician suggested placing Temple in an institution. Temple's mother refused to listen to the diagnostician and helped Temple adapt to the everyday world. Her mother hired a speech therapist, who worked one-on-one with Temple and enabled her to acquire language.
During Temple's college years, she conceptualized the squeeze machine, which was designed for herself because she had a sensory integration dysfunction
Sensory Integration Dysfunction
Sensory integration dysfunction is a neurological disorder characterized by a neurological sensory integration deficit. The more current diagnostic nosology uses the term sensory processing disorder to describe this condition....
and disliked physical affection by people. The machine hugs both sides of her to calm her down, as she controls the pressure, and it makes her relaxed whenever she becomes tense.
Even though the machine worked, the school forced Temple to remove it, claiming that it was some kind of sexual device. Later after spring break ended, Temple and her aunt came back to school to persuade the school to let her use the device. Temple later proved through rigorous scientific study that the machine was only a calming device and, as a result, she was allowed to keep it. She uses this machine for self-medicating reasons ever since.
Later on, the movie flashes back to when Temple was just being admitted to Hampshire Country School
Hampshire Country School
Hampshire Country School is a private boarding school for gifted children in Rindge, New Hampshire, started by Henry Curtis Patey and Adelaide Walker Patey in 1948. Formerly a co-educational school, it is designed now as a residential middle school for boys with high ability who have difficulty in...
. She was expelled from her previous high school because a child taunted her and she hit him with a book. There, she meets a supportive teacher, Dr. Carlock, who encourages her to go further into science as a career and to eventually attend college.
Temple does indeed graduate from college and becomes a worker at a ranch. She rebuilds a new dip, and alters a slaughterhouse for cows so that it is much more humane. The film concludes with an autism fair convention, which Temple and her mother attend.
Temple speaks out from the crowd and tells the audience how she overcame her difficulties and was able to achieve academically, as well as how her mother helped her deal with the everyday world. The people become so fascinated that they request Temple to speak in front of the auditorium.
Cast and characters
- Claire DanesClaire DanesClaire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in...
as Temple GrandinTemple GrandinTemple Grandin is an American doctor of animal science and professor at Colorado State University, bestselling author, and consultant to the livestock industry on animal behavior... - Catherine O'HaraCatherine O'HaraCatherine Anne O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress and comedienne. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, and her roles in the films After Hours, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and also in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest...
as Aunt Anne, Temple's aunt and sister of Eustacia. As a teenager, Temple often visited her ArizonaArizonaArizona ; is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. It is also part of the western United States and the mountain west. The capital and largest city is Phoenix...
cattle ranch during the summer. - Julia OrmondJulia OrmondJulia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:...
as Eustacia Grandin, mother of Temple. When Temple was younger, Eustacia was in denial over the doctor's diagnosis of Temple's autism. Eustacia was determined to have her daughter receive an education and lead a normal life despite the diagnosis. - David StrathairnDavid StrathairnDavid Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck...
as Professor Carlock, Temple's boarding school science teacher and mentor. Carlock was aware of Temple's visual skills and was supportive in furthering her education.
Development
The idea for a biopic of Grandin originated with its executive producer Emily Gerson SainesEmily Gerson Saines
-Early life:Gerson Saines was born in New York, NY and graduated from Northwestern University with a degree in Radio/Television/Film.-Representation:Gerson Saines began her career as an assistant at Creative Artists Agency and first became an agent at APA...
, a successful talent agent
Talent agent
A talent agent, or booking agent, is a person who finds jobs for actors, authors, film directors, musicians, models, producers, professional athletes, writers and other people in various entertainment businesses. Having an agent is not required, but does help the artist in getting jobs...
and a co-founder of the nonprofit Autism Coalition for Research and Education (now part of Autism Speaks
Autism Speaks
Autism Speaks is the world's largest autism advocacy organization that sponsors autism research and conducts awareness and outreach activities aimed at families, governments, and the public. It was founded in February 2005 by Bob Wright, vice chairman of General Electric, and by his wife Suzanne, a...
). In the mid-1990s, Gerson Saines was a vice-president at the William Morris Agency
William Morris Agency
WME is the largest talent agency in the world, with offices in Beverly Hills, New York City, Nashville, London, and Miami. WME represents elite artists from all facets of the entertainment industry, including motion pictures, television, music, theatre, publishing, and physical production...
when her 2-year-old son was diagnosed with autism. She learned about Grandin soon afterward, when her mother told her about seeing Grandin's book Thinking in Pictures in a bookstore and, around the same time, her grandmother independently sent her an article about Grandin by Oliver Sacks
Oliver Sacks
Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...
.
Reading about Grandin renewed Gerson Saines' "energy, motivation and spirit" in coping with her son's condition. "Temple's story brought me hope and (her mother)'s story gave me direction and purpose," Gerson Saines said in a later interview. "Parents of a child with autism everywhere need to hear it, functionally and spiritually. I knew this story had to be told and given my access as a talent representative in the entertainment industry, I felt it was my responsibility to make that happen." Through Grandin's agent, Gerson Saines asked to meet Grandin for lunch. "She came in wearing her cowgirl shirt—-in her very Temple way, in her very Temple walk. I realized that there were people staring at her, and in a different lifetime I might have been one of them, but all I could think of was, 'I can't believe how lucky I am to be here. This woman's my hero.'"
Grandin was familiar with Gerson Saines' work with the Autism Coalition and granted her permission to make the film, but the endeavor—first launched in the late 1990s—would take more than ten years to come to fruition. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
reported in 2002 that David O. Russell
David O. Russell
David Owen Russell is an American film director and screenwriter. He has been praised for the loose, comic energy that characterizes his work, and is notorious for his explosive confrontations with cast members.-Early life:...
was attached to direct the film from a screenplay by Merritt Johnson (adapting from Grandin's memoirs Emergence
Emergence
In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence is the way complex systems and patterns arise out of a multiplicity of relatively simple interactions. Emergence is central to the theories of integrative levels and of complex systems....
and Thinking in Pictures). Russell later dropped out and was replaced by Moises Kaufman
Moisés Kaufman
Moisés Kaufman is a playwright, director and founder of Tectonic Theater Project. He is the author of Gross Indecency: The Three Trials of Oscar Wilde, 33 Variations and is perhaps best known for writing The Laramie Project with other members of Tectonic Theater Project...
, who also left the project. By 2008, director Mick Jackson had taken the helm and Claire Danes was in negotiations to star as Grandin. Johnson's script had been replaced by one from Christopher Monger
Christopher monger
Christopher Monger is a Welsh screenwriter, director and editor, best known for writing and directing The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain and writing the HBO biopic 'Temple Grandin'. He has directed eight feature films and written over thirty screenplays.-Early life:Monger...
(both Johnson and Monger are credited as writers of the finished film).
One element Gerson Saines was sure about from the beginning was that she wanted to work with HBO, in part because of her longstanding relationship with the network through her work as an agent. "But I also knew that by going that route, more people will see it," she said. "When you're trying to make a movie like this," it's very rare that it reaches a wide audience." HBO was equally intrigued by the story, and Gerson Saines credits past and present HBO executives with keeping the project alive until it could be properly realized. "I made a commitment to Temple that I was going to make it and make it right...I never pushed to get it made until now, because now we got it right."
Jackson knew early on that Danes was his first choice to portray Grandin, believing that Danes' seriousness and dedication would help her to capture Grandin's mercurial mental and emotional shifts without veering the film into disease-of-the-week melodrama. Danes herself was coming off a string of more lightweight roles (whose "primary job and experience [was] to become gaga over a man," she described) and eager to take on a more demanding part. Although she was only vaguely aware of Grandin at the time, Danes dove into research, including watching documentaries about Grandin and studying Grandin's books and recordings. "It was really daunting, because she's alive and has a great eye for detail," Danes said. The two women spent about six hours together in Danes' apartment, ending with a hug from Grandin ("For her, that's not easy," Danes observed), which Danes was glad to take as validation that Grandin approved of her for the role.
Production
Temple Grandin began shooting in October 2008 at Austin StudiosAustin Studios
Austin Studios is a film and video production facility with 10,000 square feet of production office space and over 100,000 square feet of production space established in 2000...
in Austin, Texas
Austin, Texas
Austin is the capital city of the U.S. state of :Texas and the seat of Travis County. Located in Central Texas on the eastern edge of the American Southwest, it is the fourth-largest city in Texas and the 14th most populous city in the United States. It was the third-fastest-growing large city in...
. The film was noted for filming in Texas at a time when TV and film production had grown scarce in the state, and legislators were seeking to expand financial incentives to draw more film crews. Grandin producer Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson
Scott Ferguson is a retired Canadian professional ice hockey defenceman who played in the National Hockey League with the Edmonton Oilers, Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and Minnesota Wild...
said that Arizona, New Mexico and Canada had all been considered before producers had chosen Texas, in part because different areas of the state could be used to represent the rural West and New England. Ferguson also credited the abundance of trained film crews in the Austin and Dallas regions as a significant benefit to shooting in the area.
Gerson Saines brought Grandin to observe the last day of shooting, which was a scene involving a cattle dip tank that Grandin had designed. Although Grandin said that she tried to stay away from Danes to avoid impinging on her performance, she was quite concerned about the proper construction of the tank and about the breed of cattle being used in the scene. "I thought, we can't have a silly thing like that City Slickers
City Slickers
City Slickers is a 1991 American comedy film directed by Ron Underwood and starring Billy Crystal, Daniel Stern, Bruno Kirby, Helen Slater and Jack Palance. Palance won an Academy Award for his performance....
movie, where they had Holstein cattle out there," Grandin said. "If you know anything about cattle, you'd know that was stupid." She said watching Danes on the monitors was "like going back in a weird time machine to the '60s."
Promotion
The film was previewed on January 27 at the Gene Siskel Film CenterGene Siskel Film Center
"The Film Center" redirects here. Not to be confused with the Film Center Building in New York CityThe Gene Siskel Film Center, formerly The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and commonly referred to as The Film Center or The Gene Siskel, is the cinematheque attached to The...
, in a screening attended by Grandin. A trailer was previewed for critics during their winter press tour on January 14; critics responded positively to "the film's bright palette and inventive direction."
HBO and bookstore chain Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble
Barnes & Noble, Inc. is the largest book retailer in the United States, operating mainly through its Barnes & Noble Booksellers chain of bookstores headquartered at 122 Fifth Avenue in the Flatiron District in Manhattan in New York City. Barnes & Noble also operated the chain of small B. Dalton...
partnered to promote both the film and Grandin's books, displaying information about autism and the film in all Barnes & Noble stores and creating a free downloadable coloring book about Grandin, using illustrations by autistic artists. Grandin appeared for a special book signing, discussion and preview of the film at a Manhattan Barnes & Noble on January 25.
Reception
Upon its February 6, 2010 debut, Temple Grandin received a positive response from critics, including a MetacriticMetacritic
Metacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
score of 84/100 (averaged from 19 critical reviews). Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
s Jennifer Armstrong wrote, "The beauty of [the film] is that it makes the title character's autism — and the unique insight it gave her into livestock psychology — relatable to anyone with a heart, and fascinating to anyone with a brain. The fact that it does so with such a singular story only makes the movie that much greater."
Alessandra Stanley of The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
called it "a made for-television biopic that avoids the mawkish clichés of the genre without draining the narrative of color and feeling. Ms. Danes is completely at ease in her subject's lumbering gait and unmodulated voice. She makes Temple’s anxiety as immediate and contagious as her rarer bursts of merriment... And as the character ages and learns more social graces, Ms. Danes seamlessly captures Temple's progress."
Robert Bianco of USA Today
USA Today
USA Today is a national American daily newspaper published by the Gannett Company. It was founded by Al Neuharth. The newspaper vies with The Wall Street Journal for the position of having the widest circulation of any newspaper in the United States, something it previously held since 2003...
wrote that unlike many other HBO productions, "Temple is an incredibly joyous and often humorous film." While praising the direction and the strong supporting cast of Catherine O'Hara, David Strathairn, and Julia Ormond, Bianco declared that "as good as everything is around them, Temple Grandin belongs to two women: the real Temple, who appears to be a spectacular human being, and Danes, who is clearly a spectacular actor." The AV Club's Noel Murray, himself the father of an autistic son, wrote that "some of the movie's aesthetic choices border on the cliché. The pulsing minimalism of Alex Wurman's score has become as much a shorthand for 'intellectual mystery' as Arabic wailing has for 'Danger! Terrorists!,' and Temple Grandins illustrative animated sequences run a little too close to A Beautiful Mind
A Beautiful Mind (film)
A Beautiful Mind is a 2001 American drama film based on the life of John Nash, a Nobel Laureate in Economics. The film was directed by Ron Howard and written by Akiva Goldsman. It was inspired by a bestselling, Pulitzer Prize-nominated 1998 book of the same name by Sylvia Nasar...
for my taste." However, Murray gave the film an A-, in part for Danes' success in portraying Grandin as a full-fledged personality instead of "a checklist of symptoms gleaned from a medical journal."
NPR
NPR
NPR, formerly National Public Radio, is a privately and publicly funded non-profit membership media organization that serves as a national syndicator to a network of 900 public radio stations in the United States. NPR was created in 1970, following congressional passage of the Public Broadcasting...
's David Bianculli unambiguously named the film "the best tele-movie of the past several years... I can't praise this movie highly enough. It's not maudlin or sentimental, but it is excitingly inspirational. It scores big emotional points with very small touches, the sound of a heartbeat, a tentative touch, a victorious smile. The acting, writing, directing, production values, every sight and every sound in HBO's Temple Grandin is perfect."
Primetime Emmy Awards
| Category | Nominee | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding Made For Television Movie Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Made for Television Movie, which is awarded since 1992. The category was originally called Outstanding Drama/Comedy Special.-1980s:*1980: The Miracle Worker... |
||
| Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Directing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special.- Chronology of categories :... |
Mick Jackson | |
| Lead Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | Claire Danes Claire Danes Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in... |
|
| Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie | David Strathairn David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck... |
|
| Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | Catherine O'Hara Catherine O'Hara Catherine Anne O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress and comedienne. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, and her roles in the films After Hours, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and also in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest... |
|
| Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or a Movie | Julia Ormond Julia Ormond Julia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:... |
|
| Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Dramatic Special This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Writing for a Miniseries, Movie or Dramatic Special.- Award winners:1970s*1979: The Jericho Mile – Michael Mann, Patrick Nolan1980s... |
Christopher Monger Christopher monger Christopher Monger is a Welsh screenwriter, director and editor, best known for writing and directing The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain and writing the HBO biopic 'Temple Grandin'. He has directed eight feature films and written over thirty screenplays.-Early life:Monger... , William Merritt Johnson |
Creative Arts Emmy Awards
| Category | Nominee | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Outstanding Single-Camera Picture Editing Film editing Film editing is part of the creative post-production process of filmmaking. It involves the selection and combining of shots into sequences, and ultimately creating a finished motion picture. It is an art of storytelling... for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special |
Leo Trombetta | |
| Outstanding Music Composition for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special (Original Dramatic Score) |
Alex Wurman Alex Wurman Alex Wurman is an American composer hailing from Chicago. He attended Oak Park and River Forest High School in Oak Park, Illinois... |
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| Outstanding Art Direction for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special | Richard Hoover, Meghan C. Rogers, Gabriella Villarreal, SDSA |
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| Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting – Miniseries, Movie, or a Special This is a list of the winners of the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Casting for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special.1990s=*1991: Separate But Equal*1992: One Against the Wind*1993: Citizen Cohn*1994: And The Band Played On... |
David Rubin, Richard Hicks, Beth Sepko | |
| Outstanding Hairstyling for a Miniseries or a Movie | Georgie Sheffer, Charles Yusko | |
| Outstanding Main Title Design | Michael Riley, Zee Nederlander, Dru Nget, Bob Swensen |
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| Outstanding Makeup Theatrical makeup In the performing arts, theatrical makeup is used to assist in creating the appearance of the characters that actors portray.-Background:In Greek and Roman theatre, makeup was unnecessary. Actors wore various masks, allowing them to portray another gender, age, or entirely different likeness.... for a Miniseries or a Movie (Non-Prosthetic) |
Tarra Day, Meredith Johns | |
| Outstanding Sound Editing for a Miniseries, Movie or a Special | Bryan Bowen, Vanessa LaPato, Paul Curtis, Petra Bach, Bruce Tannis, Ellen Segal, David Lee, Hilda Hodges |
Golden Globe Awards
| Category | Nominee | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Best Miniseries or Television Film | ||
| Best Actress – Miniseries or Television Film | Claire Danes Claire Danes Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in... |
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| Best Supporting Actor – Series, Miniseries or Television Film | David Strathairn David Strathairn David Russell Strathairn is an American actor. He was nominated for an Academy Award for portraying journalist Edward R. Murrow in Good Night, and Good Luck... |
Screen Actors Guild Awards
| Category | Nominee | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie | Claire Danes Claire Danes Claire Catherine Danes is an American actress of television, stage and film. She has appeared in roles as diverse as Angela Chase in My So-Called Life, as Juliet in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet, as Kate Brewster in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, as Yvaine in Stardust and as Temple Grandin in... |
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| Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie | Catherine O'Hara Catherine O'Hara Catherine Anne O'Hara is a Canadian-American actress and comedienne. She is well known for her comedy work on SCTV, and her roles in the films After Hours, Beetlejuice, Home Alone, and The Nightmare Before Christmas, and also in the mockumentary films written and directed by Christopher Guest... |
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| Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Female Actor in a Miniseries or Television Movie | Julia Ormond Julia Ormond Julia Karin Ormond is an English actress who has appeared in film and television and on stage.-Early life and education:... |