The State of Grace

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My parents seem to think life will be easier if my autism is on a need-to-know basis. I’m not sure it works, but nobody bothered to ask me.” (32) State of Grace was a particular favorite, and I even managed to score a copy of the promotional one-sheet from my local video shop in the Bronx when they were done with it, which hung in my bedroom throughout high school. The movie was my introduction to newly minted Oscar-winner Gary Oldman, and he delivers a searing, unsettling, heartbreaking performance that made me a fan for life. But by the mid-nineties, my secondhand VHS of Grace had gotten misplaced, and given the scarcity of the film’s availability, I haven’t had occasion—despite trying in 2016 for that best–of–St. Patty’s post—to see it since. Maureen Ryan, Burn It Down: Power, Complicity, and a Call for Change in Hollywood (New York: Mariner Books, 2023), 188 Swear words, sexual references, hate speech, discriminatory remarks, threats, or references to violence

The State of Grace by Rachael Lucas (eProof) - Sometimes I feel like everyone else was handed a copy of the rules for life and mine got lost. Idealiter zouden we elke beoordeling die we ontvangen publiceren, positief of negatief. We zullen echter geen beoordelingen weergeven die (onder andere) bevatten of verwijzen naar: Side note: I’ve never seen a movie that captures gun play better than State of Grace. I don’t know if it’s in the direction, cinematography, sound design or all of the above. Whatever the case, it ain’t CGI, and you could teach a master class on the film’s climax alone. Action directors everywhere should take note.Throughout, the focus is kept on Grace’s experience of the world, rather than others’ experience of Grace—as it should be. This is particularly evident in her commentary on how other people treat her, which includes her frustration with not being consulted on important decisions, and not being believed or asked about her experiences: The book shows clearly how even though Grace is often able to pass as neurotypical, it takes extensive effort:

The summer Joanou shot State of Grace on location in New York City, I was a thirteen-year-old boy living in the Bronx. For me — in addition to its many other pleasures — Grace is like a photo album of what the city looked and felt like at that very special time in my life (something I wrote about here). To echo Jules’ comment directly above, New York doesn’t look like that or fully feel like that anymore, and I’m grateful to Joanou for preserving that ephemeral moment on film. So many of the movies set in New York during that era presented a gloriously romantic vision of the city — The Secret of My Success (1987), When Harry Met Sally… (1989) — but Grace, along with Do the Right Thing (1989), wasn’t afraid to shoot New York in all of its “imperfect,” blue-collar beauty. So, if someone like yourself, nearly two decades my junior, were to ask me what New York was like at that time, I’d refer them to State of Grace. And I also found that I didn't relate to her. Not because she's autistic, but because of the life she lives. She is middle class, whereas I'm not. Which is fine, I've read books with characters who are middle class before, and I was still able to find something there to relate to, even if they live a very different life to me. But there was nothing with Grace. She was very young 16-year-old, which was a gap of it's own, but there was also a distancing, in regards to her having a horse she rode every day, and all the training for Tennis her sister had. As I said, this in itself is not a problem, but it's just the way it was told, I guess, that put up a barrier between Grace's Middle Class life, and my own Working Class life. Idealmente, publicamos todos los comentarios que recibimos, ya sean negativos o positivos. No obstante, no publicamos aquellos comentarios que contienen o hacen referencia, entre otras cosas, a: In real life, autistic people sometimes need more tolerance for mistakes because we have difficulty regulating our behavior in certain situations, or because we don’t always read situations well. And there are things it isn’t realistic to expect us to do—for example, we can’t stop a meltdown in midstream. It’s important to not try to make us change things about ourselves we can’t change, and it’s also important to recognize that we can (and should, and generally want to) figure out why we made avoidable mistakes, so we can avoid making them again.You might know your neighbors name if you live here, or your wife may have friends in the community garden but there is very little left of any roots, ethnic tradition, or the “Cheers” factor at local businesses, when maybe 20 or so years ago a corner bar or store still felt like an extention of home.

Fifteen-year-old Grace has Asperger’s; she looks at the world differently to those around her. She’s happiest around her best friend, Anna, and her horse Mabel, but when everything around her starts to change, Grace struggles to adjust.I can’t say much more about State of Grace than I’ve already expressed in the essay above, but I absolutely second your assessment: I thought it was brilliant at 14, I think it’s messy and flawed and still brilliant at 43. State of Grace didn’t have the brand-name recognition of The Godfather, Part III or the visceral kineticism of GoodFellas, but it has so much going for it to appreciate in its own right: pitch-perfect performances from an all-star cast; great New York locations (impeccably captured on celluloid by Jordan Cronenweth); Ennio Morricone’s elegiac score; and a story about a criminal subculture — the Westies — that is endlessly fascinating and, strangely, has been largely underrepresented in favor of its Italian counterpart.​ I'm so glad you gave grace a wonderful best friend and such great support to cushion her through life and buoy her up. Her grandma sounds wonderful and aunt intriguing! Grace's dad reminds me of a certain wildlife presenter who was one of my teenage crushes..