MovieChat Forums > The Congress (2014) Discussion > What was Aaron's sickness?

What was Aaron's sickness?


Aaron was described as having worsening (but unpredictable) hearing problems and seeing problems. At one point his mother describes this as "Usher Syndrome II", which it turns out is indeed a genetic defect with exactly those symptoms. So far so good...

But Aaron was also portrayed as having symptoms I'd describe as on the autistic spectrum: his fascination with the minutiae of flight schedules, his fixation on flying models and kites, his unusual synthesis of sensory inputs exemplified by his excitement over the combining colors of the runway/kite/sky/clouds, and his very childlike ("Peter Pan":-) demeanor. While a few anecdotal reports of something vaguely along those lines keep me from immediately writing it off as complete nonsense, it doesn't really add up either.

What's really going on? How do you interpret Aaron's mental states?

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I was a bit confused too - my son is 11 and has autism. Those scenes of her son flying kites and yes, the description he gave of the planes meeting together to create beautiful light - these scenes were so like my son, I thought "Wow, autism depicted like it really can be instead of a Rainman type of betrayal……However when they went into his hearing and vision problems I got a bit lost.

Oh well, I guess it's like real life - nothing that we usually pigeon hole is ever how we expect…..

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Oops it should read "….a Rainman type of PORtrayal…" not BEtrayal…..lol….

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Ya, it was really confusing. The kite stuff hinted strongly at Asbergers. but then I was completely lost when he's sitting with his mom, and asks her "What's wrong, you seem like something's wrong." Which is one of the most debilitating part of that illness. the inability to be empathetic or even pick up on other peoples feelings and states. and then they started talking about hearing and vision loss and I'm like, WTF.

It's like they just wanted to make him "sick", but not bother having it be a real thing. Considering the metaphorical nature of the movie, it's slightly acceptable, but it is alienating to not have anything "real" to latch onto.

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