Owen Suskind spent most of his formative years withdrawing from the world. As a child with autism, he couldn't communicate well with his family, nor process what's going on around him. The condition developed when Owen Suskind was just a toddler, but now he's managing life like a regular kid and it's mostly thanks to Disney movies.
Owen Suskind spent the ages of 3 to 6 as a mute child with autism, but he immersed himself in Disney movies. Then one day, he finally started to talk and his first word was "Juicervose!" that was apparently a line from a song on "The Little Mermaid," per News Corp Australia. He'd seen the Disney movie countless times.
Soon, Owen manifested how he understood the world around him by using Disney movies as his reference. From these, he was able to articulate and empathize like a normal person, so his family also learned to communicate with him with Disney movie references, per New York Post.
His life story as a child with autism has become the subject of the documentary called "Life, Animated," which is based off a book written by Owen Suskind's father, Ron. An excerpt from the book was published in New York Times in 2014. Watch the trailer to "Life, Animated" below.
The documentary's director, Roger Ross Williams, related that working and watching Owen Suskind was an eye-opener, especially since Williams wasn't into Disney movies. "I realized by listening to Owen and through Owen that these stories really were a roadmap for life," he said, per Refinery29.
However, he also shared that there were some instances when Disney movies didn't help Owen process what is going on in his life, such as in matters of sex. In this instance, it was his brother, Walt, who tried to explain things to him.
Owen Suskind is now an adult in his mid-20s, a graduate who has a job and living on his own in Cape Cod. He's still communicating through movie references, but this time he's already moved on to more mature films, such as "The Dark Knight." Watch Owen talk about his story in "The View" in this video below.
