Loop Reviewed by an Autist

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I've been writing reviews about a dozen movies that lacked an autism-coded character lately, and I've decided I'm going to write a review of a short film about an authentically autistic character for once. In this review for the short film, Loop, I'm going to speak my thoughts on the accuracy of the film depicting nonverbal autism in the character named Renee in its 9-minute runtime. By the way, I loved the animation style of the short film.

The plot of the film revolves around Renee spending her time going in a canoe on a lake with her campmates. Renee's camp counselor pairs her with a new canoemate named Marcus. Together, they embark on canoeing on the lake while Marcus uses his remarkable patience to do his very best to understand and figure out Renee's behavior along the way. Renee is exhibiting autistic traits throughout the film, where she taps on her smartphone to play a peculiarly electronic sound that she loves to play on repeat, for instance.

Renee is nonverbal, so therefore, the best she knows to communicate with Marcus is with her moans, humming, and cries in her best attempt to make him understand her, as well as using emojis on her phone to express her needs to him. She also has trouble maintaining eye contact with Marcus to begin with. One notable part of the film was when Renee flowed through the tall water grass in the lake and feeling it for the soothing feeling she gets from putting her hands out to touch it to put herself at ease. She shows moments of overstimulation from rocking the canoe side by side and letting the loud echoes from the water tunnel be too loud for her too.

What set up the most intense part of the film was when Renee and Marcus crashed ashore from the lake, which disrupted her flow and triggered her meltdown, where she threw her phone into the water and hid under the canoe. Marcus succeeded in helping Renee calm down from being patient enough to allow her the time and space she needed until he figured out he had to hand her a piece of tall lake grass and calmly reassured her everything would be okay. Renee eventually regains control of herself. Renee sparks a newfound comfort and friendship with him when she makes eye contact with him. The film ends with the duo continuing on with their canoe at sunset. The last scene had Renne's phone drying water out in a bowl of rice, where it got a text from Marcus asking her to continue canoeing with him again, which implied Renne and Marcus had bonded over a newfound special friendship for more canoeing adventures ahead.

As an autist who was once nonverbal at a very young age, the short film truly resonated with me, and I thought the depiction of autism in it was impressively accurate. I was touched by Marcus for showing me that neurotypical people like him can have the capacity to build bridges to break the misunderstanding gap between them and neurodivergent people. I'm proud of the director, Erica Milsom, for creating such a masterpiece of accurate autism depiction. I look forward to reviewing more movies and short films alike that have autism, either implied or true. I rate this short film a 10 out of 10.