Films involving Learning Difficulties

Learning Difficulties (Mental Retardation): Minor Films no photo.

Title	Color Me Perfect (1996) (TV Film)
Alternative/Original Title
Disability	Learning Difficulty
Country	USA
Length	88
Genre	Drama
Rating	2
Director	Michele Lee
Cast	Michele Lee Susan Blakely Robin Thomas
Notes	I'm becoming sensitive about the way I throw housebricks at these TV films. I really am trying to like them. But when they borrow their story from another film (and this happens frequently) I'm already looking around for a brick. Here the original is Charly (1968), already revised in Phenomenon (1996). On the one hand we have the sweet and innocent Dina who has learning difficulties or mental retardation, on the other the scheming, manipulative scientists hankering after a Nobel Prize. After being introduced to Dina who plays with young children we are bombarded with science and given a low salute to "moral responsibility" After injecting chimps to make them more intelligent, not something which is demonstrated, the scientists want a human guinea pig. Dina has microencephaly, not sure what that means. But after a series of injections she changes from a rather awkward, seemingly happy woman into a 'rocket' scientist who knows more than her mentors. Along way she also acquires dress sense, deportment and a flashy hairdo. But there are consequences. The chimps aren't sleeping and Dina isn't sleeping, and when she is rolled onto the stage of a prestiguous scientific conference the flashing lights cause her to collapse. There's a really funny scene where an emerging Dina is sitting on a park bench and a jogger stops and sits besides her. Within 2 minutes they're kissing. Now one can excuse Dina, but the jogger? What Dina learns is from books and the way she is tested is through a series of quiz show type questions. This film falls into the same trap of the films cited above. She does also learn about poetry, music and art but it's for learning's sake. There's conflict between the main two scientists who are married and the wife becomes jealous of Dina. At the end Dina goes off to find herself her idea of achieving this is to become a teacher.

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