Temple Grandin

Temple Grandin is another film in a long line of quality television movies by HBO films. With no more restrictions than that of the MPAA it's little wonder that the little channel has been able to put out such a strong body of work over the last decade. Some may even argue that premium cable channels like HBO and Showtime are on the edge of a new frontier that is rivaling feature films for quality. Miniseries and long running shows like The Soprano's and The Wire have the distinct benefit of being afforded the opportunity to really give their stories and the characters within them more time and thus depth than a two hour feature would normally allow. But HBO hasn't been content with just those venues of entertainment, feature films seem to be on their minds as well and so here we have Temple Grandin.

Grandin tells the story of a young autistic girl struggling to find her own voice within a society she has trouble identifying with. Temple, played brilliantly here by Claire Danes starts with a remote interest in cattle, an interest that once cared for quickly turns into a life's work of passion. Temple see's the world through photographic images in her mind which thus gives her certain ability's average people don't posses. She decides to harness this power on livestock in a way so that the herding of cattle to slaughter houses will be much less stressful on the cattle themselves which then saves costs in all kinds of places.

Their isn't anything real special here. Just your average tale of a person over coming great adversity only to be shown as an example for those of us willing to watch. A good little film with a career best performance out of Danes.