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Parents of children with autism, well-functioning or not, deal with a host of daily struggles in figuring out how to communicate with their child — how to find the person behind the affliction.

One of the biggest hurdles for parents is the thought that nobody else can understand what it's like to raise a child with autism. That's one of the reasons director Roger Ross Williams' heartwarming documentary "Life, Animated" feels like a godsend — because Williams, in his tender telling of the story of the Suskind family, helps explain those complex feelings to the world.

The story began when Ron Suskind, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, and his wife, Cornelia, noticed something happening with their son, Owen. At age 3, Owen started exhibiting the symptoms of autism. He became withdrawn and uncommunicative — a condition with which they struggled for years, and to some degree still struggle with now that Owen is in his 20s.

At one point, though, the Suskinds noticed that when Owen did speak, it wasn't always random words. Often he spoke lines of dialogue from the Disney animated movies he watched — and sometimes he would use lines from Disney characters that would describe his own feelings. The Disney movies became a way the Suskinds could reach Owen as never before.

Drawing from Ron Suskind's book, Williams ("God Loves Uganda") takes his camera unobtrusively into Owen's adult life as he prepares for semi-independent living with the help of counselors and an autism support group. (One of the movie's highlights is Owen's final support-group meeting, when he brings in some special guests, actor Jonathan Freeman and comedian Gilbert Gottfried, to re-enact their roles as Jafar and Iago from "Aladdin.")

Williams, who won the Directing Award at this year's Sundance Film Festival with this film, goes even further to showcase Owen's inner life. He has employed the visual effects studio Mac Guff to create gorgeous animated sequences that depict Owen's semi-autobiographical fantasy adventure stories.

These stories become Owen's way to express himself, in spite of his disability, and add a dimension to "Life, Animated" that a less inspired documentary would miss.

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'Life, Animated'

A family's struggle with autism is chronicled in this heartwarming documentary.

Where • Broadway Centre Cinemas.

When • Opens Friday, July 29.

Rating • PG for thematic elements, and language including a suggestive reference.

Running time • 89 minutes.

Special event • Producer Julie Goldman will speak after the 7 p.m. screening on Saturday, July 30.