Films featuring children and adults with disabilities (also referred to as "different abilities") are nothing new. But it's not nearly as common for the actors playing these characters to actually live the same lives as their fictional counterparts.
Which is just one of many things that made Out of My Mind so special when it first premiered in January 2024, later dropping on Disney+ in November. Actor Phoebe-Rae Taylor, like her character Melody Brooks, has cerebral palsy. She's not just playing the part of a character living a life she does not understand. She experiences that life every single day.
The movie has been out for a while, arguably far too late for a traditional review (though I do regret waiting as long as I did to watch it -- for the record, I did read the books and they're phenomenal). But the film is eerily relevant in 2025 when you consider that entire scenes of the project are dedicated to Melody's education, IEP plans, and the roadblocks educators face when trying to ensure equal opportunities for special needs students in the classroom.
Special education is not a dumping ground for disabled students, though it is often treated that way -- largely because of a lack of resources from school districts. Ironically, the special needs of many of these students aren't actually met. It may be an Individualized Education Plan, but if there aren't enough resources to cater to every student individually, everyone suddenly finds themselves lumped together with others whose needs don't necessarily align with their own.
The Department of Education is vital to the success of special education across the nation, and to put students' right and ability to learn in jeopardy is devastating on far too many levels. The movie and the book it's based on touch on this briefly, and it's a story about how one family makes an effort to push beyond those boundaries. But as a survivor of special education programs (having, arguably, been wrongfully put there at different points in my childhood), I'm not going to pass up an opportunity to point you toward a movie that highlights these issues in a real, impactful way.
This isn't a story about how a girl named Melody gets made fun of and learns to overcome it. It's a story about how institutions dismiss disabled children as if they aren't real people. It's a beautiful movie, but it's also an accurate and devastating depiction of what it feels like to grow up blocked not by your own limitations, but by the limitations other people put on you.
People with disabilities deserve to learn, grow, and thrive just the same as everyone else. Their paths to achieving these things may look a little different. But they aren;t the ones standing in their own way. That hasn't changed, and it doesn't look like those in power want it to anytime soon.