Film Review
The portrayal of disabled bodies in The Peanut Butter Falcon between Kitsch and Critique
Christoph Joppich
The dramedy (2019) stages the limits and dreams of a young adult with Down-Syndrome. The movie unfortunately recurs on all sorts of outdated tropes instead of creating an aesthetic social critique.
Cultural-industrial films about the lives of people with disabilities find it difficult to leave a certain path: A solitary, withdrawn, and attractive man meets a lovable disabled character. Despite this dichotomy, an unexpected friendship develops, which is almost certainly formed through shared adventures. Along the way, there is also a love story, mostly with a woman reduced to a care-worker. The Peanut Butter Falcon shares this fate.
The story of Zak and Tyler (and Eleanor)
Zak (Zack Gottsagen) is 22 and has Down-Syndrome. His biggest dream is to become a professional wrestler, his role model is the fictional wrestling star “The Salt Water Redneck”, whose recaps he watches non-stop. This dream is limited not only by Zak’s disability but also by his precarious environment: His parents pushed him on as a baby and instead of living in an assisted-living facility, he resides in a home for the elderly. Only nurse Eleanor (Dakota Johnson) seems genuinely sympathetic to him.
Tyler (Shia LaBeouf) is in his mid-30s and a go-getter. He keeps his head above water with illegal crab fishing, plagued by the mysterious death of his brother Mark (Jon Bernthal) and rival fishermen. When Tyler burns the gear of his enemy colleagues, he finds stowaway Zak in his boat, who has managed to escape the nursing home to find “The Salt Water Redneck’s” wrestling school.
A buddy-road movie begins: Tyler takes Zak on his escape to Florida, promising that he will deliver him to the school. Eleanor joins the group when she learns that the nursing home also wants to deport Zak. After some difficulties and a dicey confrontation with Tyler’s pursuers, the three arrive at the house of “The Salt Water Redneck” (Clint) who, after some hesitation, decides to train Zak.
The movie ends with an amateur-level wrestling duel: Zak, “The Peanut Butter Falcon” finally gets a chance to prove himself in a real fight. It seems that his opponent shamelessly exploits the supposed inferiority of his handicapped counterpart and beats Zak up in cold blood. However, the latter manages to throw “Samson” out of the ring in a high arc at a favorable moment. Just then the Tyler’s pursuers reach the arena, knocking him out with a crowbar. In the final sequence, Tyler, the overjoyed Zak, and Eleanor are shown in a car heading for Florida.
The boundaries of kitsch-portrayal and critique
The Peanut Butter Falcon impresses with a first-class cast, a scenic setting, and humorous slapstick and comic relief. However, the storytelling is not able to emancipate the already existing film adaptations of stories centering on disabled people. The plot strongly resembles famous film adaptations like the American Rain Man (1988), the French Chacun pour Tous (2018) or the German Goldfische (2019).
This is reflected in the critical quality of the film: It certainly succeeds in showing that the current set-up of our society marginalizes and disintegrates disabled people per se. Bigotry towards disabled people is outlined on a structural level (through Zak’s fragile housing situation) and a private level (through bullying against Zak). This is of course commendable, but it’s also just an image that has been painted multiple times already.
The Peanut Butter Falcon affirms the wholly false
The Peanut Butter Falcon does not manage to create a perspective that transcends these boundaries. The realization of a possible utopian anticipation that art can and should provide remains absent, a possible emancipation of disabled people gets lost in a rather lucky victory of amateur wrestling. Thus, the film does not deconstruct marginalization, it solidifies it, telling us that disabled people could indeed land a lucky punch, but not achieve the self-determination of non-disabled people.
This deficit is enriched by a patriarchal and sexist image of women: Eleanor is a care-worker whose role is almost entirely reduced to this activity. Compared to the daredevil Tyler, she is the naive and prudent second half. Tyler as a caregiver and Eleanor as a go-getter would have been much more exciting film roles already. Assigning these gender roles to the “wrong” genders would have been very refreshing, not least for the romance of the two, which is staged very hetero-sexist and cliché.
If you haven’t seen any or only a few films with at least one disabled person in protagonist roles and if you appreciate the cast, The Peanut Butter Falcon is recommended. For those who already know Rain Man, there won’t be much new except for beautiful landscape shots from the swamps of Georgia.