Chris (Mind My Mind)

Chris

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Portrayed by	Simon Hodges (voice)
Appears in	Mind My Mind
Debut
Year	2019

Chris is the main character in the Belgian-Dutch animated short film Mind My Mind.

Character creation

Director Floor Adams used to work in the psychiatric field and taught animation to autistic students for a number of years. She also had a short relationship with an autistic man who had a special interest in F16 jet fighters. As part of her research, she spoke with former students and autistic friends. A large theme that came out of these conversations was how tiring and difficult making social decisions could be.

Initially Adams worked on the film by herself, but eventually a team of 60 animators worked on the finished product. Mind My Mind took 10 years from conception to finish, 6 years of which were a full-time job for Adams.

Early drafts of Chris had the character as a young girl or a young woman. There were also plans to show the inner workings of the mind of Gwen (Chris' love interest).

The film premiered on 16 January 2019 in Dutch cinemas, and had its international premiere at the 2019 Tribeca Film Festival.

Synopsis

Chris has a day job as a museum guard, and works on his model airplanes in his free time. He gets invited to a party by his brother Tom, which he reluctantly goes to. At the party he talks with Gwen, a zookeeper who works with chameleons. He works hard to not start infodumping about airplanes. As the party goes on, he gets overwhelmed and leaves. Gwen invites him to the zoo, to show him around. That night, Chris realizes he's fallen in love with Gwen. He starts researching flirting to expand his social scripts, and then goes to visit Gwen at the zoo. He keeps thinking of her, and asks her on a coffee date. When the date is over, Gwen gives him a kiss on the cheek.

Later on the evening, Gwen comes by his house, looking dejected: one of the chameleons at the zoo has died. He tries to hide his interest in model airplanes. He first fumbles his scripting, but recuperates and invites Gwen back in for apple juice as she's leaving. She hugs and kisses him, and he asks is she'd like to have sex. It all goes well, until he starts getting overwhelmed and stops. His phone rings with his ringtone of plane engine sounds. Gwen, amused, asks "what was that?" and touches him The touching and trying to repress the urge to start talking about airplanes becomes too overwhelming; he snaps at her and leaves to go work on his model airplanes. He reaches his breaking point when he accidentally spills some paint on the model he's working on: he throws the model against the wall, and lies down on the floor, reciting facts about airplanes.

Chris realizes Gwen was sad about the death of the chameleon, and impression he'd missed earlier. He repairs the smashed airplane, and paints it in the same colors as an "excited male" chameleon he saw in a book that Gwen had lent him. When Gwen leaves, he throws the model plane of out his window so that it lands right next to her. He shows her his collection of model airplanes, and can finally talk freely about his special interest—much to Gwen's delight.

A time skip shows Chris being a regular at the zoo to see Gwen when she's working, and his "Gwen relationship script".

Autism

Chris' autism is only mentioned once in the film: when his brother Tom instructs him "don't be so autistic" at the party.

A key element in the film's storytelling and visual design is the representation of the inner workings of Chris' mind. A little guy lives in his brain and processes all the information that comes in, digs up social scripts from a vast library, compares people's faces to a chart of facial expressions, prevent Chris from infodumping at socially inappropriate moments, and much more. (While it isn't named in the film itself, the director refer to this little guy as "Hans", after Hans Asperger.) Based on these kinds of information, Hans gives instructions on what Chris should do, like "introduce yourself" at the party, "leave!" when he's getting overwhelmed, or "mirror her" at his coffee date with Gwen. When Chris is engaging with his special interest, the little guy can relax in a large armchair.

Reception

Anne van de Beek, autistic media scholar and creator of the A-typist blog, gave the film a generally favorable review. She praises the way the film shows the inner workings of Chris, the portrayal of social camouflaging, and the way it avoids the commonly-seen "overcoming"-scenario (where a disabled character has to overcome their disability to be accepted). However, she critiques the way certain stereotypes are used, particularly the fact that Chris is a young, white, heterosexual man.

The film was shortlisted for Best Animated Short Film at the 92nd Academy Awards, but did not end up getting an actual nomination.

External links

• Official website (archived)
• Mind My Mind making of video
• Mind My Mind on Wikipedia (Dutch)
• Mind My Mind at IMDb