PORT TOWNSEND — Olympic Neighbors will partner with the Port Townsend Film Festival on Wednesday to screen “Peanut Butter Falcon,” a 2019 film about a friendship between two struggling young men.
In addition to the value the movie brings in terms of disability representation, Claudia Coppola, executive director of Olympic Neighbors, said she chose the movie because she likes it as a movie.
“I think it’s artistically well done and interesting,” she said. “I think that there are a lot of really great documentaries and movies about people with disabilities. Some do a much better job of explaining different types of disabilities and different types of support, but I wanted to pick something out that would highlight our services but also just engage people and be interesting to watch and start the conversation that way.”
In the film, Zak, portrayed by Zack Gottsagen, who has Down syndrome, runs away from a senior living center because he was unhappy there. Tyler is grieving his brother’s death and feeling some responsibility for it.
The two become entangled and form a meaningful relationship, providing each other emotional support as they escape through the rural countryside of North Carolina.
Along with the screening, there will be a discussion following the film. The screening will be at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Balcony Theatre, 211 Taylor St., Suite 401A.
Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at https://www.ptfilmfest.com/events.
The film has an approval rating of 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and is “certified fresh” on the site.
Olympic Neighbors is a Port Townsend-based nonprofit dedicated to helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) live good and full lives in their community. The organization provides affordable rent and 24-hour care for up to six adults with IDD in Port Townsend.
A normal home, in a normal neighborhood, the home is classified as an Adult Family Home and licensed by the state Department of Social and Health Services.
“They really see the house as their home,” Coppola said. “They see the roommates as their family. As you can imagine, with six adults living together, there can be some work to navigate. But for the most part, they feel like this is their place and this is where they belong.”
Coppola said one of the things she likes about the movie is that one of the main characters has a developmental disability.
“That was really important to me, to have someone who lives that life portray that character, and also to show that a person with a developmental disability can do anything that a person without one can,” she said. “They can be an actor in a big movie and memorize lines.”
“Peanut Butter Falcon” also stars Shia Labeouf as Tyler and Dakota Johnson as Eleanor, an empathetic aid from Zak’s senior living center, tasked with finding him.
Zak living in a senior living center is an accurate portrayal of what can happen to people with IDD, Coppola said, especially in Washington.
“Everyone should be living in the community, especially people with disabilities,” Coppola said.
The film does a good job of highlighting the issue, one that Olympic Neighbors is directly working to address, she added.
“Especially in the state of Washington, it’s really common for people who are living with their aging parents to end up in a crisis,” Coppola said. “If that parent dies or ends up in the hospital and there isn’t anywhere for them to go in their community and they get sent to a nursing home, sometimes they are sent to the hospital, they end up in the ER. They could even end up in a state institution. The best-case scenario, I guess, is a nursing home. But they are not living with their peers, they are living with a geriatric community, and they are not integrated into the actual community.”
“Peanut Butter Falcon” is hard to categorize, it’s a road-trip film, a buddy film, an escape film and one that brings representation to a mainstream audience without ever making it the focus.
“I like that, while it is a story about a person with disabilities, his disability isn’t the whole story,” Coppola said. “The same with how a person with an intellectual or developmental disability is more than just their disability, that’s just a piece of who they are.”
“It’s different for each of the people that live there,” Coppola said. “We have an individual who watched his brother and sister graduate high school and go off to college and start their lives. This, for him, felt like he was doing the same thing, making a progression on. We have individuals who talk about not feeling alone anymore, because they have other people to share things with.”
Coppola said that kind of care also takes care of a big question for aging parents of individuals with intellectual or developmental disabilities.
“They have the peace of mind now, of knowing that their loved one is going to be safe when they can’t continue to provide their care,” Coppola said.
Some of the residents of the house will attend the screening, and one of the residents will be a part of the Q&A after the film, Coppola said.
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Reporter Elijah Sussman can be reached by email at elijah.sussman@sequimgazette.com.
