Spoilers for Asteroid City, No Hard Feelings, and Corner Office.
I’d already realized the difference between The Big Bang Theory and Community by the time this scene aired: In the midst of an episode, Dean Pelton turns to Abed, who is a character clearly coded as neurodivergent.
"Abed, you’re … special," the Dean says. Can’t you just stand at the scene of the crime and see what happened?"
Abed replies: "I see a man. Using a social disorder as a procedural device. Wait, wait, wait. Mildly autistic super detectives everywhere. Basic cable. Broadcast networks. Pain. Painful writing. It hurts."
That was well before I realized that I was at least partially under that umbrella.
And it seems like recent movies sure don’t want me to forget it. {1}
When I told a friend that I’d recently seen Wes Anderson’s Asteroid City, he nearly turned up his nose. "I don’t like Anderson. I don’t get the whimsy."
I replied. "I don’t think it’s whimsical at all. I think it might be neurodivergent."
I’ve since seen a few other folks — sadly, I lost the links — comment on this as well. The plot of Asteroid City — barring one fantastical incident — is a bog-standard 20th century American "literary" story. Aside from Anderson’s distinctive cinematography, the element that makes these films "whimsical" is that everyone says what they are thinking, directly, out loud, in near-monotones.
Instead of a flirting wink and half smile, a character might say: "I suddenly find you attractive and would like to take you home tonight." The target of their affections might respond: "I am feeling the pang of loneliness, and hope to find some distraction from my own mortality in the pleasures of the flesh. I accept."
Look at the trailer for Asteroid City or The Grand Budapest Hotel. The stylized behavior is demonstrated in both.
If you’re thinking something like "that sounds a lot like looking at the world through a kind of neurospicy lens," I’m right there with you. But twisting a familiar shape of story through that lens before it gets to me … well, it’s not whimsical. While there are benevolent violations left and right, they do not feel funny to me… just matter of fact. As a result, while I do appreciate the cinematography and style, I really don’t know whether or not I enjoyed Asteroid City, or even if I experienced anything like Anderson intended.
I stand by what I said about No Hard Feelings, but I want to expand on the footnote I put at the end.
Andrew Barth Feldman’s character in No Hard Feelings — who sure came across coded neurospicy to me — adapts pretty suspiciously quickly to being out of his comfort zone in the final third. But I’ll forgive the film that due to the fact that it also does not demand that his character change and conform to "normal" society either.
One of the clever things about this film is how it seems to steer right into some really problematic waters, but then quickly end up going in a direction I wasn’t expecting. Feldman’s character is one of them, a clearly neurospicy kid (and family) who is coaxed into being more "social" by the local hottie.
Except that isn’t what happens in the film. Lawrence’s character might have been the hottie, but she’s feeling age, hard living, and the weight of the past. Feldman’s likewise sidesteps most — not all — of the easy jokes at the expense of the "weird kid." Instead of the tropes of either being rejected or conforming, the characters of both Feldman and Lawrence (who turns in an amazing performance) strike out to make their own ways, on their own terms. They must interact with the world, yes, but they are not defined by other’s expectations of them, nor are they willing to put aside their own needs and desires for another’s convenience.
While Feldman’s depiction of neurodivergence plays strongly into the stereotypical autistic traits that used to be called "Asperger’s," and the character becomes more social suspiciously quick, I found his portrayal and the script both strongly empathic toward neurodivergence while still acknowledging how silly things can get sometimes.
The trailer is NSFW.
Which brings us to Corner Office. The film was adapted from The Room by Jonas Karlsson, which we’ll come back to in a second.
Jon Hamm’s character is our neurospicy protagonist, again leaning fairly heavily into the stereotypical traits that keep getting portrayed as the only traits. The plot is fairly simple: Hamm’s character arrives at a new job, and works to integrate himself with the strange new office culture. And then he discovers a room, a nicely appointed but unused office that only he can see or experience. But when he’s in that office, suddenly everything seems to just work … better. He’s more efficient. His analyses and reports improve dramatically.
Still, to everyone else, there is no door to the office, just a blank wall. When Hamm’s character is in the office, all that anyone else can see is that he’s standing and staring at the wall, practically unresponsive.
At one level, it’s pretty bog-standard magical realism.
At another level, it’s an elaborate metaphor for being neurospicy and working in modern office culture alongside allistics.
Hamm’s character is constantly trying to figure out what everyone else is thinking or doing — and not-infrequently, getting it wrong. He is bothered by sensory stimuli. He knows that he has skills, and wants to use them. He is not particularly interested in power for power’s sake. Arbitrary rules that make no sense are rationalized away.
And when things get to be too much, he enjoys being able to get away to a serene place without the buzzing fluorescents and drop ceilings. There, he can collect his thoughts. He is more productive. He feels better after spending some time in this secret office, even if his actions look incomprehensible to the others in the office.
Yeah, it’s a metaphor for stimming, meltdowns, and shutdowns.
It was very uncomfortable for me to watch. Hamm’s character — or at least his inner monologue — is entirely too close to my own thoughts in the past.
I recently saw a TikTok explaining part of why a lot of autistic folx have problems with employment. This is frighteningly close to my own experiences at a prior employer.
While that TikTok explains in words what is going on, Corner Office ends up evoking what it felt like.
That made the book review of The Room (the book Corner Office came from) all the more disturbing — and makes the experience of Corner Office all the more necessary.
Utterly convinced of his own superiority, [the character who Hamm eventually plays] is a know-it-all, entirely lacking in self-knowledge: he is the office weirdo, the outsider. “I worked out a personal strategic framework. I arrived half an hour early each morning and followed my own timetable for the day: fifty-five minutes of concentrated work, then a five-minute break. Including toilet breaks. I avoided any unnecessary socialising along the way.”
— Ian Sansom in The Guardian
The disdain and derision is palpable.
As Mad In America put it back in 2021 (linking to papers in Nature and The Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders:
Allistic peers are less likely to interact with autistic people because of immediate and unconscious negative judgments that are based purely on social communication style, and not substance. Autistic people are also often perceived by neurotypicals as deceptive or lacking credibility.
After watching Corner Office, Sansom’s critique feels as though it is a critique of a neurodivergent protagonist who simply is getting through a strange and confusing environment as best he can.
Perhaps the allistics will find Corner Office "whimsical."
I hope not.
To me, it is a claustrophobic exploration of what it feels like to be neurodivergent and working in the allistic world.
I hope that rather than being held up as another Sheldon to mock and belittle, Hamm’s portrayal will help some grok what it’s like for us.
{1} I’m still on that journey, figuring out what labels and terms are useful and which ones should be discarded. So — along with the truism that if you’ve met one neurospicy person, you’ve met one neurospicy person — these impressions are wholly mine and shouldn’t be mistaken as if I’m speaking for any neurodivergent community.