Like many a self-respecting tween, Melody Brooks has a thing or two to say about this and that, and a need to be heard. But that need has a particular urgency: Melody, the central character in “Out of My Mind,” has cerebral palsy and is unable to speak.
Her story, set in the early aughts and based on a novel by Sharon M. Draper, arrives onscreen with a family-friendly brightness, buoyed by upbeat montages. The director, Amber Sealey, and the strong cast keep things grounded, though, honoring the serious undercurrents while having some fun.
As the ultrasmart girl using a wheelchair who longs for sparkly shoes and escape from educational segregation, Phoebe-Rae Taylor (making her screen debut and infusing the part with her experience of CP) has an expressive, knowing gaze, alive with eagerness as well as exasperation. A fan of “Friends,” Melody imagines her thoughts voiced by Jennifer Aniston and, in an effectively used narrative device, Aniston delivers the 12-year-old’s openhearted and playfully snark-tinged observations. Two effortlessly charismatic performers, Rosemarie DeWitt and Luke Kirby, play Melody’s loving, charmingly harried and ever so slightly cool parents, who battle the insurance company for access to a machine, the Medi-Talker, that enables their daughter to converse with others.
One of Melody’s fiercest advocates, a sweet buttinsky neighbor (Judith Light), delivers a searing piece of wisdom in plain language. Melody takes the advice to heart when given a chance to “mainstream” with other sixth graders. She holds her own with the mean girls and schools a wisenheimer teacher (Michael Chernus). Her story is told in an uncomplicated way but not without subtlety. She’s easy to root for.
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