A Heartfelt and Inspirational Journey
The Unbreakable Boy is a documentary that tells the story of a boy with a brittle-bone disease and also is proven to have autism. By his positive energy and the outlook on the life, he succeeds in changing everyone around him. The fact is success and hardships of his family life, parenthood, and the fundamental purity of a child are tightly reflected in the movie. Therefore, at the heart of the story is the boy who is capable of seeing light when the world has turned into a place of darkness. It perfectly depicts the virtue of accepting the ways within oneself and the positive impacts that result from it on the family and the larger society. The mood is somewhere between happy-go-lucky and melancholic, which just mirrors the nature of the great proses of coping with life’s adversities.
Jacob Laval did a fantastic job portraying the protagonist; he is quite believable and believable is touching. His acting of the boy is filled with the essence of the young man’s suffering and achievements life with osteogenesis imperfecta and with autism. Meghann Fahy as the boy’s mother also gives a good account of her role and more so, brings humanity into the film. These aspects capture the struggles that families going through such situations grapple with.
Jon Gunn directs this film in a very sensitive but also comedic way, so that the film does not feel like a tear jerker. His direction brings humor and kindness to the movie and this shows how there is beauty in humanity when going through troubles. Showing unity and understanding the sufferings of others can be considered as the major themes of Gunn’s narrative approach into the The Unbreakable Boy.
The music and tone of the film contribute significantly to the narrative. The score enhances the movie wonderfully well, given its positive message prevalent throughout the movie. It properly blends the happy and reflective episode with the former making the show more enjoyable.
The way things are depicted adds a sense of beauty with a focus on characters and their environment. In relation to the plot of the film, the imagery is equally as optimistic: light and particularly colors are depicted as hopeful and invincible. The use of the camera adds on to the warmth and affection that the audience feels for the boy and consequently the whole series.
The aspect of production design also adds on to support the realistic nature of the setting of the series. The mood is intentionally created to portray an ordinary life experience in the family to which Zhenya has been assigned as the main character. Starting from a common family house to a school environment each scene is built to fit the plot of the film.
These leads us to the very few uses of special effects seen in the film with the majorities aimed at illustrating the physical barriers in the way of each young boy. All these features are incorporated in a very subtle manner in the story, such that they complement the actual story. The effects help to support the understanding of the boy and his life with his affliction to a much better degree than if it was not done.
The edits made to the pages illustrate the narrative in the best manner possible as it continues the story without a hitch. The actions being linked from one scene to the other, and the interleave of scenes achieve the purpose of building and focusing the audience’s attention on the main dramatic moments. Some of the scenes shift from being tensed up to more relaxed, so that tension and relaxation are not permanent. This is important in capturing the elaborate interactions the boy has with the people in his life as well as the influence he has on them. Self aspires to offer a peek into the characters’ mental states, describing whatever they go through in their minds. The dialogues give the flavor of real life, comical and warm, even if talking about blood cancer – nevertheless, the potential viewer should be ready to meet idealized treatment of some serious topics. It does in fact emphasize more on the happy side of it and sometimes even skip on certain truths about autism and brittle bone disease. However, this fits the nature of his story since the intended purpose of this kind of narrative is more to encourage and uplift the audience. It has a very good story, good acting and fine directing and this is memorable. Overall, it enables the viewers to open the door to life with an open heart and appreciate life in even the smallest details.
