The Story of Luke...review

We went to see The Story of Luke at the San Diego Film Festival on Saturday.  It was wonderfully written and the acting was amazing.  Lou Taylor Pucci was excellent, he played all the autism traits to perfection.  The swaying, little eye contact, the structured life, using his watch timer to remind him of important things (to him of course), the discipline, his thinking process, the almost child like logic...it was so heart warming and touching.  I will never forget it and I'm hoping it gets released in theatres soon. This would be such a great education for all.  Alonso Mayo (@alonsomayo) is to be admired.  He wrote this from personal experience and although Luke is a fictional character, he captured a little bit of everyone he has met with Autism and he did a stupendous job at doing it.  I am so happy this movie exists, it's something I always hoped would be done.  I remember my husband Mark telling me I should write about Darian and make it a sitcom (hahaha) I doubt any network would want to do something like that. Of course he sees all the humor in what we have dealt with, but a lot of families are not there yet.  It's too much stress to raise a child like ours and the worst part is not knowing what is going to become of them.  But this movie has given me some hope as to Darian's future.  I only hope she will turn out like Luke.  After the movie, the cast hung out with the viewers and many people had a lot of great comments and questions.  I couldn't speak.  I wanted to, but this movie touched me to my core that I knew if I opened my mouth I would just start sobbing! How pathetic am I? There's one scene that just got to me, where Luke's supervisor (who has some type of autism of his own, but in a very cinical angry kind of way) Zack, asks him why he thought he (Luke) was alive, why was he born...Luke in his most innocent, childlike way doesn't dare give Zack eye contact, almost afraid to look.  Zack continues by telling him the reason he was alive was so normal people can pity him and feel sorry for him and remind everyone what a sad and pathetic world we live in...holy crap! I just never even thought of that...it was so harsh, it hit me like a ton of bricks! Luke responded with anger by saying "No!" He was there with a purpose of accomplishing what his grandfather told him "get a paying job, find a girl, get your shit together"...I appreciated the director's bluntness and how he turned tragic scenes into funny scenes.  But this part of the movie really got me thinking of how others might see Darian and I know a lot of people see her and feel sorry, see us and feel bad for us.  I mean sometimes I even feel sorry for us!  But I have to say, when I see Darian, I see love, happiness, strength, unbelievable courage, struggle, sadness...but most of all innocence.  God bless her for being oblivious to the bad things us normal people have to deal with, the ugliness of people who don't know how to love any more.  I just pray I live long enough to get her on the right path, the path she's intended to walk, the path God has for her. I know she is in our lives to show us what unconditional is supposed to be, there is nothing more amazing than to see Darian look at me because she is REALLY looking at me and I swear she can see my soul and knows how much I love her.  So don't feel sorry for her or us, I feel sorry for those who don't have the privelege of having this unconditional love in their life, it's truly amazing...So thank you Alonso Mayo for bringing this movie to life...The Story of Luke will always have a special meaning in my life...