For as long as most audiences can recall, Disney has served as the premiere hot spot for coming-of-age tales, family-friendly dramas and heartwarming stories of young people overcoming hardship. This reputation is perhaps best exemplified by the newly released film Out of My Mind, starring Phoebe-Rae Taylor in her feature film debut. The movie – which initially premiered at the Sundance Film Festival back in January – landed on Disney+ in late November and brought with it a flurry of positive responses from critics and general audiences alike, particularly about the project’s ending.
Needless to say, the following write-up will be rife with spoilers, so please feel free to bookmark this page and return at a later date if you have not yet seen Out of My Mind in its entirety. Still, the movie is more about the overall journey than any one massive twist ending, so you should have no trouble enjoying Out of My Mind even if you know what’s going to happen before you actually sit down to watch it. Any way you slice it, the film is a heartwarming tale that offers some excellent representation of differently abled people across the globe.
What Happens in ‘Out of My Mind’?
Like the 2010 novel the film is based on, Out of My Mind centers on a teenage girl with cerebral palsy named Melody Brooks. Due to her condition, Melody is bound to a motorized wheelchair and unable to speak or directly communicate with her loved ones. Despite this setback, Melody is quite intelligent and even shows signs of having a photographic memory. As a narrative device, her inner monologue is presented to the audience using the voice of Jennifer Aniston, who serves as Melody’s favorite screen performer due to her obsession with Friends. Throughout her childhood, Melody is showered with love and care from her parents Chuck and Diane, who each want the best for her, despite the rising cost of care associated with Melody’s condition. Chuck takes a particular interest in Melody’s academic growth, even encouraging teachers to raise their expectations of his daughter in school.
Throughout grade school, Melody took special education courses alongside other differently abled students, though her scores on tests and other assignments showed that she wasn’t being challenged enough. Though special education courses are a godsend for many students of all walks of life, it quickly becomes clear that Melody would excel even when placed in the standard courses for students her age. On the advice of a doctor from the Department of Education, Chuck and Diane agree to equip their daughter with the tools necessary to take standard classes, at great personal expense. Up to this point, Melody is only able to communicate by gesturing to a device with a small list of vague items and directions, limiting her vocabulary significantly, and preventing her from effectively participating in class. Though Diane objects, Chuck agrees to purchase their daughter a device called the Medi-Talker, at a price point of $17,000.
Melody’s Early Struggles
Almost immediately, the Medi-Talker overhauls Melody’s quality of life, allowing her to speak using text prompts and intuitive software. She answers questions in class, scores 100 percent on her tests, and generally runs laps around her peers, academically speaking. Despite her obvious intelligence, Melody is still seen as something of an outcast in the classroom due to her disability. Some children treat Melody as a non-presence, while others make outright cruel jokes and rude comments at her expense. After several attempts to organically make new friends all fail, Melody resolves to offer her Medi-Talker as a study tool. The device, which has a number of learning games programmed on it, helps several students join the Whiz Kids academic competition, though Melody herself is barred from joining the team.
Melody’s parents become suspicious about her failure to join the Whiz Kids, since she was the one who practically trained all of her classmates for their entrance exams. With a bit of digging from the Department of Education chair, they come to learn that Melody’s teacher, Mr. Dimming, intentionally chose not to grade her exam, illegally preventing her from qualifying. This upset means that Dimming is forced to overturn his decision, though Melody’s rotation into the Whiz Kids results in her classmate Rose being kicked off the team, further damaging Melody’s social reputation. At the end of the day, neither the school nor the students can deny Melody’s academic prowess, though none of them seem willing to accept her with her disability.
How Does ‘Out of My Mind’ End?
Melody quickly becomes the star of the Whiz Kids in local competitions, singlehandedly scoring points into the double digits on behalf of her team. Despite her status as a star student, Melody is still left out of social events, including a celebration at a restaurant which takes place right after she leads the team to victory. While the students are celebrating, they receive word that their flight information has changed for their trip to Washington, where they are poised to compete at the national level. Mr. Dimming quickly rushes the students to the airport, though he conveniently forgets to update Melody’s parents. As a result, Melody loses the opportunity to compete in nationals, which brings her a great deal of depression. In the following days, Melody reaches her lowest point, which sees her sabotaging her expensive Medi-Talker, fighting with her mother and refusing to go to school.
Needless to say, the Whiz Kids get completely smoked without their star pupil, leaving the rest of the students to return to school with pouts and indignant attitudes. In a final triumphant exchange, Chuck and Diane accompany Melody to school, where she utilizes her Medi-Talker to absolutely dog-walk her peers and teachers for their bigoted behavior. In a shocking final monologue, Melody laments the lack of respect she has received in and out of the classroom, demands that her peers acknowledge her as a “normal” student, and embraces her own identity, disability and all. At this point, the Jennifer Aniston voice is dropped, and replaced with the Medi-Talker robot voice, signaling Melody’s final transformation into a confident, self-assured young woman. By the time the credits roll on Out of My Mind, Mr. Dimming and the students vow to change their ways and be more accepting of Melody moving forward.
‘Out of My Mind’ Ending Explained
Though it may be difficult to believe that the entire classroom would discard their prejudices after a single confrontation, Melody’s final speech really does bring her out of her shell. Here, we see that her true potential was as curbed by social politeness as it was by cerebral palsy, as even Mr. Dimming is forced to reconcile with his failures as an educator. Overall, it may be a bit too ‘Disney’ for some audiences to handle, though the final scenes offer so much catharsis and release that audiences everywhere will be forced to crack a smile. Out of My Mind is a feel-good story designed to empower those who are differently abled, and inspire them to tell their story, demand respect from their peers, and refuse to allow those who look down on them to place speed bumps along their path to success.
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