My husband Mike and I spent our Friday date night watching The Accountant, which stars Ben Affleck as a highly functioning autistic savant who’s just as skilled firing a gun as he is crunching numbers. Affleck’s character Christian Wolff appears to live a seemingly normal, if not downright boring, lifestyle . . . just what one would expect from the stereotypical accountant. (Apologies to my sister-in-law Christine, who swears that she and her fellow accountants are not the wall flowers that society assumes they are.)
When Christian is called into a major company headed by John Lithgow’s character Lamar Black to find out if there’s been internal fraud leading to missing funds, he meets their analyst Dana Cummings, played by Anna Kendrick. Christian, who appears to have no interest in connecting with others, surprisingly feels at ease around Dana, which is indeed a rare emotion for him. When his accounting work begins uncovering some shocking secrets, he finds himself wanting to protect the vulnerable and naive analyst.
As the film goes from slow paced to action packed, Christian takes lots of “calculated” risks to ensure that Dana remains unharmed and that he finishes the job.
Throughout the film there are numerous flashbacks to Christian’s childhood, giving viewers glimpses of what life was like for him growing up as someone with autism. Viewers discover that it’s always been “accrual” world for Christian, and begin to empathize with him for his inability to “reconcile” his past.
I worked as a special education teacher for eight years, and have a great deal of experience working with students who are on the autism spectrum. Personally I found a number of flaws in the way autism is presented throughout the movie, especially Christian’s father’s unorthodox ways of preparing his son to deal with sensory overload in the real world. While his father’s tough love was an attempt to prepare Christian for the fact that there would always be people who reject him because he’s different, it’s improbable that Christian would have turned into the gun-toting “Loan Ranger” that he ends up being as an adult.
I applaud the idea that autism is being brought to light, but I felt like there needed to be more thorough research as to the legitimate indicators of high functioning autism. I liked that Christian’s autism as an adult was showcased because I feel that society has a tendency to only associate autism with children; autism is not something which can be cured or that children magically grow out of once they mature.
At one point during the movie, Mike leaned over and whispered to me his prediction, which correctly proved to be a major plot twist. After the movie was over, Mike said he would give the film a 7 out of 10, and I agreed with his “analysis.” He shared, “It was entertaining, but there were lots of plot holes.” I agreed that some things just didn’t “add up.”
The Accountant is not one of those movies that I’d ever feel the need to watch again, and it’s not because of the strong violence. It felt awfully slow at times even though there were plenty of action packed scenes in between. Mike and I both concurred that the movie has a lot of “assets” including the impressive cast, but it wasn’t our favorite Ben Affleck flick. If my humble opinion “counts” for anything, The Accountant “came up short.”
Movie times: click here
Genre: Action, Crime, Drama, Thriller
Director: Gavin O’Connor
Actors: Ben Affleck, Anna Kendrick, J.K. Simmons, Jon Bernthal
Rating: R for strong violence and language throughout
Running Time: 2 hours 8 minutes
