this was a horrible show. sia should have listened. her reaction to the backlash of portraying an autistic character this way shows she is not in any way qualified to be writing a movie script about an autistic character. there was no reason to make maddie play this character, when she so clearly stated that she did not want to. a child anticipated the backlash of this movie and sia couldn't? this is downright offensive for so many reasons and also showcases restraints and holds that are illegal in some states (because they have caused deaths.) the lack of research is astounding. this movie is gross.

Yikes. If I must be honest, I only checked this one out because of the heated controversy surrounding it. I knew we were in for a dumpster fire when the first trailer dropped and Sia's unprofessional response to the controversy on her Twitter amount. But man, watching the whole movie was so difficult that I can't fully describe it in words. Incredibly embarrassing to watch and doesn't do its subject matter justice. There are some good songs, but it's so chopped together in these music numbers that it felt so disjointed as a whole. This should have never been made.

Ironically I enjoyed everything but the Music. I thought all the actors were brilliant, Maddie Ziegler was the standout and proved she can hold it down with the best of them. About the controversy: As far as the holding and calming down being controversial I say to each their own. The actors were playing the part of people that had little to 0 knowledge of how to deal with Autism. Zu was an alcoholic that was double her sisters age but has the emotional growth of an 8 year old. If you are portraying someone this way they are going to be messed up and not do everything perfect. The problem with society today is that children & young adults are outraged about everything. People want to rewrite history in films, take out everyones imperfections and make everything hunkeydory. That's just unrealistic & stupid. I had a 80 something year old Uncle and he was racist against black people, he was wonderful otherwise but do you think at his age you he was going to stop being racist?The man had 80 years of living on me, who am I to tell him how to act. He would do it on his own if he felt the need. I did however tell him to please keep the foul language and raw commentary to himeself when I was around and out of respect I would filter my comments and storytelling for him. Excpecting everything & everyone to be the same is unreasonable . But God gave you freedom to do what you want so if you don't like aspects of this film then don't watch it again. Push the button & keep it movin.

This film was a reasonably good example of the trope of "immature relative forced into child custody who grows from the experience," but this time with lots of twists. It's Sia and Maddie, so it's going to be bizarre. I agree with Matthew Brady that the editing of the songs greatly reduced viewers' enjoyment of them, and that's a real shame because Ryan Heffington put effort into the choreography, much of which we could barely see with all the cuts. Unfortunately, none of the songs rise to the catchy cleverness of 'Chandelier.' As for the 'controversy' over not casting a person with ASD in the title role, that would have made a completely different film. This is a Sia-and-Maddie film, not a tender drama about an autistic girl and her washed-up big sister, but a dreamscape! I particularly enjoyed the Radgicals show-within-a-show and its host on the autistic spectrum (or not?). I wondered what her story was, as she seemed as eager to host a children's tv show as Zu was to care for an autistic child. Perhaps her character was intended to be that very mirror. The acting performances were excellent, from Leslie Odom to Ben Schwartz and Beto Calvillo. Kate Hudson's constant grinning made me want to slap her, and that's high praise for an actor who is portraying the villain!

Everybody knows you don't go full retarded.