OUT OF MY MIND: A Review
by Karen Pecota

Amber Sealey | USA | 2024

Filmmaker Amber Sealey is chosen by Disney films to direct a heart-warming tale about Melody Brooks (Phoebe-Rae Taylor), a non-verbal, wheelchair-using, 12-year-old girl with cerebral palsy who longs to ditch her class for the disabled student and join a mainstream class in OUT OF MY MIND. Sealey uses Daniel Stiepleman’s adaptation from the best-selling novel, under the same name, by award-winning and professional educator Sharon M. Draper. Since 2010, Draper’s book is in schools all over the country and the world. “Every time I talked to a school group they all said, ‘How come this book isn’t a movie?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know anybody who does that yet’,” laughs Draper.

As fate would have it, producers Dan Angel and Peter Saraf were eager to put Draper’s story to film. Saraf recalls, “My daughter read Out of My Mind when she was in fourth grade. It was one of the first books that really sparked her imagination and she told me she thought it would make a great movie. I agreed. I dropped her off for her first year of college just as we wrapped shooting.”

The filmmakers shared, “Finding the right screenwriter to tell Melody’s story was key to Draper’s narrative. The book is told from inside the head of Melody and is full of self-reflection, humor, and the typical musings of a pre-teen girl.” Stiepleman got it, as a former teacher and parent, he knew that this coming-of-age story needed to emulate the transparency of a young intelligent girl trying to find her voice. He reflects, “Melody is sassy, smart, and funny. And, we love seeing the world from her point of view.”

Melody pursues her dream with intensity when she happens to find a video of an Augmentative and Alternative Communication (ACC) device made special for people like her. Katherine (Courtney Taylor), a postdoctoral candidate in education observed Melody and believed that she needed more intellectual stimulation and connections to her peers.

Melody’s parents purchase the Medi-Talker device, but have concerns as to the impact on her next steps to attend a mainstream classroom. Melody’s exhilarating journey begins when she joins 6th-grade classmates who are uncomfortable with her differences and taught by a teacher who is unabashedly inept to welcome her. Through a series of hardships, Melody takes her place in the class, insisting that she has the right to be there and pleads her case with grace and eloquence. OUT OF MY MIND is a relatable narrative championing to be seen for who you are, to live life at your full potential, and to declare that your voice matters.