ongoing

We have had some (minimal) experience with autism. A good friend's son has it; we're pals with a man the guy who runs New England Center for Children in Southborough, a treatment and education center for autistic kids. It's a terrible disease, and it varies in its shape and form, but essentially those people severely affected need constant care, have extreme difficulty with emotions and speech. They live in a world that you can touch, but not penetrate. It is that situation that the Mollison family deals with "The Black Balloon," an Australian indy film up at the West Newton Cinema. Its only "name" actor is Toni Collette, who plays the mother (Maggie) of the Charlie (Luke Ford, in photo) an older teenager, who, his younger teenage brother Tom (Rhys Wakefield) and, in time, a newborn. It's a story seen primarily through Tom's eyes. It's his world of school, swimming (a lifesaving) class, an ignorant peer group, a potential girlfriend, Jackie (Gemma Ward) and Charlie. Tom loves Charlie, has always tried to help him communicate - Charlie stopped speaking at some point and now communicates through grunst and hand signals - and negotiate his very difficult world. Charlie is larger than Tom, and he's sweet, temperamental, angry, confused about the mixed signals given to him. Tom tries to hide Charlie's existence at times, takes him under his wing at others, hugs him and wrestles with him - sometimes good-naturedly and sometimes out of anger and exasperation from the toll Charlie's existence takes on Tom. All completely normal reactions. Mostly, he's a pillar of strength, as are the parents - Erik Thomson plays dad Simon. There are conflicts everywhere, but the Mollisons love Charlie and realize they will need to care for him his entire life. Which doesn't mean there isn't tension when Charlie runs through the neighborhood in his underwear and pees in the toilet of a neighbor's home, or when Charlie does something even more crude while Jackie is over to the Mollison's for an introductory dinner. That prompts the film's major confrontation. And you wonder, where will this end and how can it end? This story - set in 1990 - isn't black and white and there's no reason to expect that kind of resolution. It's not giving away anything to say that at the end, life goes on. What you'll be wondering as you watch this unfold is: How? Can a family's love for their autistic son maintain itself?
As Charlie, Ford is amazing. You get no sense that he's acting; you truly believe he's autistic and the film is all the more heart-breaking for it. You know that so much is out of his hands, and all in his head, and that the wires in there are crossed and will remain so. This is a small movie, certainly, just a slice of ordinary life under extraordinary circumstances. There are no caricatures here - except perhaps the students who taunt Charlie and Tom. You do want to smack them upside the head for their insensitivity, but you may remember at that age, particuarly, how easy it is to mock to outsider and gather strength in your peer group doing so. Writer-director Elissa Down, who has two autistic brothers - autism afflicts males in greater proportion than females - and she knows where all love and strife come from. It's a brave movie, without anything wrapped up in a neat package. Tickets: $9.75. Check website below for showtimes.

1296 Washington St. 617-964-6060 www.westnewtoncinema.com