Journey into Dyslexia explores the phenomenon of people who have enormous difficulty with words--people who all too often are pushed aside as disabled or, cruelly, labeled stupid. The most powerful aspect of the documentary is the straightforward interviews with dyslexics themselves, among them young students grappling with these issues in the classroom; a professor at Johns Hopkins, whose son is also dyslexic; famed consumer advocate Erin Brockovich; a college recruiter who first heard about dyslexia on The Cosby Show; and a micro-miniature sculptor, who makes expressive sculptures that fit inside the eye of a needle. One dyslexic has invented a device that can read, with an electronic voice, any page it photographs--he reflects the sizable percentage of entrepreneurs who are dyslexic, as the difficulties they face force them to develop other extremely useful and inventive skills. As a movie, Journey into Dyslexia doesn't experiment with form, as so many contemporary documentaries have (such as Man on Wire, Exit Through the Gift Shop, or the works of Errol Morris); this is unfashionably square, a mix of talking heads and scientific explication. But the subject matter is so rich--and the interviews so compelling and nakedly emotional--that viewers may come away envying the unique challenges and triumphs that dyslexics experience.

Starring:

Jonathan Mooney, Phred Swain-Sugarman, William Keeney, Erin Brockovich-Ellis, Ben Foss, Steve Walker, Beau Martin, Willard Wigan, Maryanne Wolf, Carol Greider, Guinevere Eden, David J. Connor, Tracy Johnson, Joyce Hardiman, Carol Schramm

Genre:

Documentary