Screen and stage treatments of disability often miss the mark, critic says

A new wave of plays and movies on the subject of disability has irked some critics, who say the underlying message is often that disabilities hold you back from living a full life.

One target of criticism is the film Everything, Everything, based on Nicola Yoon's teen novel about a girl who falls in love, but can't leave her home because she has an immunodeficiency disease.

The film hitting theatres May 19 purportedly examines what it's like to live with a genetic disorder, but drops the disabilitynarrative completely by the end. Critics are blasting the movie as another unrealistic depiction of living with a disease or disability and usingit only as a plot device.

According to Yoon, the story is about love.

"I think Maddyis very happy in the book before she meets Olly," Yoon told CBC News."I think the point is love changes everything."

"The book is not about a disease," saidStellaMeghie, theCanadiandirectorof Everything, Everything.

"Maddie is very content in the book and the greater themes of love and what you would risk for love are paramount over that."

Similar criticisms were directed at the 2016 filmMe Before Youalso based on a novelwhich ends with a main character choosing death over living with a disability.

'We try to tell it sensitively'

Meanwhile,The Boy in the Moon, a new play debuting in Toronto, has taken a different approachby discussing, but not explicitly portraying, the disability on which the story revolves.

Adapted from Ian Brown's book of the same name, the production recounts his struggle to raise his son, Walker, who has the rare disorder cardiofaciocutaneous syndrome. Brown bluntly walks readers through his own journey, questioning the worth and meaning of a lifelike Walker's.

"The play invites the audience into that journey as well," said stage director Chris Abraham.

"It means asking some candid questions about personhood, about knowability, about the soul inside an individual that is very hard to access. And that does make it a sensitive story to tell and we try to tell it sensitively."

The play, which officially openedMay 11, doesn't include Walker as a character.

"There was no satisfying or correct way to show Walker, to have Walker represented by an able-bodied actor,"Abraham said.

'You don't simply cure your disability'

Neither approach is satisfactory, according to Toronto film critic Angelo Muredda.

"I think disabled people are used to seeing these sort of able-bodied, disabled narratives that are about disability as this kind of tragic condition that keeps you from living a real life, that you have to get past."

That trend is a dangerous misrepresentation of what it's like to live with a disability, he said.

"You don't turn off your disability, you don't simply cure your disability or transcend your disability. It's something that you live with every day."

The answer, Mureddasaid, lies in allowing people with disabilities to tell their own stories.

"We want to see ourselves representedthe way that we are...And actually see our lived experiences in books and on screen."

Festivalspotlights disabled characters, filmmakers

The ReelAbilitiesFilm Festival is a newevent that aims to showcasefilms about characters with disabilities andpromote films made by people with disabilities.

An offshoot of a New York festival, it's being held in Toronto this week for its second year.

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For this edition, the festivalhasadded workshops to teach filmmakers how to make their films more accessible for the hearing impaired. Organizers arehoping to expand the festival into more Canadian cities in the coming years.

"It's really important that filmmakers with disabilities are telling their own stories and finding platforms to share their own experiences," said ReelAbilitiesartistic director LiviyaMendelsohn.