By Andy Crump
… Trump plays no part in Rachel Dretzin’s Far From the Tree, a documentary distilled from Andrew Solomon’s book of the same name, but the film rebukes his cruelty regardless by doing what cinema does so well: highlighting humanity. Solomon, serving as the film’s narrator, a bridge between each of his subjects and a subject in his own right, wrote his book in 2012 as a way of forgiving his family, specifically his late mother, for rejecting him on account of sexual orientation.
… Dretzin takes two keywords, “normal” and “different,” and makes a film about people who stand apart from their families in various ways—physical, mental or in extreme cases, moral. … Far From the Tree isn’t about Dretzin making a point or serving as an advocate. It’s about ceding space to disabled voices and letting them tell their stories in their words.
Together they weave an empathetic mosaic. …
(To read the full review, please visit Paste.)
