Out of My Mind is now streaming on Disney+, and as the film reaches a whole new audience, questions over whether it is a true story have started to be raised.
The coming-of-age drama tells the story of a non-verbal sixth grader named Melody Brooks who has suffered from cerebral palsy her entire life, leaving her bound to a wheelchair. Melody is seen entering into a class with fully functioning kids her age and overcoming the challenges that come with that.
Starring Friends actress Jennifer Aniston as the voice in Melody's head, Out of My Mind earned rave reviews at the Sundance Film Festival and finally arrived on streaming on November 22.
Is Out of My Mind a True Story?
While Out of My Mind feels true to life, that does not necessarily mean it is a true story.
The Disney+ streaming drama, while being centered in a place and time (2002), is not based on any actual events. It is rather based on a fiction book of the same name by author Sharon Draper.
Draper's 2010 novel, which follows the plot of the movie almost to the word, was loosely inspired by her own story, being a parent of a daughter who also has cerebral palsy.
As outlined in Cleveland.com's review of Draper's book, the story tackles the struggles of a young disabled person who is brilliant in their own right but is bound to the brain and body they were born into.
Draper's connection to the disabled community through her daughter pushed her to write the story of Melody and prove to readers (and eventually viewers) that there is so much more going on behind the eyes of someone like Melody they just have trouble expressing it.
Speaking with Life Skills 2 Learn, Draper posited, "I wrote the book because it needed to be written," as she sought to give kids like Melody a voice:
"The simple answer to your question is I wrote the book because it needed to be written. Those kids like Melody needed a voice. It is amazing how many people with a whole array of disabilities have written to me because the book called attention to their particular plight. They simply thanked me for letting the world 'see' them as real people."
She admitted that while her daughter is disabled, "she is NOT Melody," but instead opened to door to an entire system for the author, causing her to want to write the book:
"I do have a daughter with a disability, but she is NOT Melody! Not even close. She tells me all the time to make sure people don’t think she is Melody. She thinks it’s funny, and loves the attention it brings her. Bringing up a child with special needs gives one a huge insight into the world of special ed and don’t even get me started on the cruelty that systems like Common Core have inflicted on those kids."
One of the key components to making the movie feel as real as it does was its lead star Phoebe-Rae Taylor, an actress who suffers from cerebral palsy herself.
In taking on the role, Taylor has said that she did not have to do much prep, as she "[related] to Melody so much" (via Kids First!).
However, Taylor (who is fully verbal) met with a few people in the Augmentative and Alternative Communication [AAC] community to get a better understanding of what it is like to live non-verbally as Melody does in the film:
"I relate to Melody so much. And before filming, I met a couple of people who are AAC [Augmentative and Alternative Communication] just to get a bit more knowledge so I could portray this role as best as I could. But apart from that, I relate to Melody so well. I did not have to really change it alot."
The director of Out of My Mind, Amber Sealey, made sure this authenticity to the community she was trying to portray on-screen was evident.
In a conversation with Deadline after the movie's Sundance premiere, Sealey described the process of research she undertook when working on the movie.
She pointed to the "wonderful consultants" they worked with to make sure they were accurately representing not just people with cerebral palsy in the film, but the people and environment around them as well:
"What was amazing about this production was, we had so many wonderful consultants, either people with [cerebral palsy] or have someone in their family with [cerebral palsy] or a [cerebral palsy] organization. They were instrumental in so many ways and just helping us not only understand disability broadly speaking, culturally speaking, historically speaking, but also just about the language surrounding it."
Part of this research included walking through some of their consultants' homes, discovering the small things that are a part of these people's everyday lives:
"I think someone who maybe is not familiar with disability, or it is new to them, they are concerned about, 'What language do I use? How do I talk?' We just had a great group of consultants who were so smart and accessible. I had families who walked me through their their whole homes and lives, 'So this is where the wheelchair always hits this corner of the wall and this is the drawer front that we pulled of because our son in the wheelchair could not see into the drawer, so we pulled the drawer front off.'"
She also made sure to shoutout Out of My Mind author Sharon Draper, calling her an "amazing inspiration:"
"You know, things like that that we were able to incorporate into the film as well as Phoebe herself and her parents. Also, I want to go back to the book. Sharon M. Draper's book. She was a source of amazing inspiration and information."
This all played into making sure that Melody's life on-screen felt real to the viewer and not just telling the audience how the movie's main character was thinking but authentically showing that as well.
Out of My Mind is now streaming on Disney+.
