przgzr If anyone wants to know medical facts about any disease, he/she should read medical literature, ask a doctor, watch educational program on TV. This is a movie, so the authors have their freedom. Of course, they have certain responsibilities. They shouldn't show obvious mistakes and let us believe they're medical facts (or any other scientific facts) when the movie ends. I can understand upset parents who have to live with their own private horror and know it will last whole life through (without miracles after waking up), but in the end it is clearly shown this was not a case of autism. Traumas can cause extremely different pictures. In adults you can spend months and years searching for somatic cause for headaches, cardiac disorders, or even blindness before it becomes apparent there isn't any. Schizophrenic catatonia is an extreme example, showing neurological symptoms. In children one can find regression (behaving like a younger child) - like enuresis after even many years of successful urinary control. But behavior like autism is also possible. (I don't remember anyone objecting "Tommy", by the way, maybe because it's much more symbolic than the realistic "House of cards".) And traumas for children are often also trauma for adults (parents) who sometimes don't let the physician know the whole truth. Sometimes they're ashamed, sometimes feel guilty, sometimes diminish the cause or even have problems to deal with it themselves, so they deny it can have reflection on health of their child. These parents can also be expected to change doctors or institutions or the way of treatment. Especially in modern world when media give a great space to non-medical treatments, because they sell newspapers (or TV shows) more than real science and completely educated professionals. That can confuse parents, already shocked by disease and afraid of future, progressively with the seriousness of the diagnosis. The way media treat "official medicine" is also important. If their glorify different kinds of magicians and a real doctor can never be heard, let alone become a hero, you can expect parents with lack of belief and very much ready to try another approach, no matter how useless, unsuccessful and even harmful (at least because it means losing precious time). So however unrealistic and hard to watch for real autistic children's parents, this film is honest, even realistic (parents who believe their doctors must understand that there really exist parents who don't!) - and (last but not least) this film is good as a film. It is meant to enjoy it and not to teach medicine. And if you ask yourself some questions it can even upset you (but try "Lorenzo's Oil" if you want it deeper than your skin).Also, some comments (and mine too) could be more adequate in Message boards, so I suggest for any more comments like this Message board to be used, and this place left to viewers who want to give opinions about the movie.

ratty-3 I am the father who wrote the original comments criticizing this movie for its use of autism. To address those who have said, sometimes rather heatedly, that it is obvious that the girl is NOT autistic and anyone who thinks otherwise is foolish (or at least has a short attention span) please consider this:If it were obvious from the beginning of the movie that the girl is suffering from an odd denial response brought on by a shaman's comments, and not an identifiable disorder, then the bulk of the movie would be meaningless. What would be the point of all the medical scenes with the use of apparently handicapped (including autistic) children if the viewer already "knows" the girl's problem?The girl displays very striking features of childhood autism, so on what basis is it reasonable that the mother should resist treatment? You can say: "you see, it wasn't really autism," but as a simple dramatic point they don't give anyone but the guileless moviegoer any reason to think otherwise.People with handicapped children often wish that anyone giving them bad news is wrong, and that there is a simple "magic" cure for their child's disorder, and so the movie unintentionally gives very bad advice.I feel it is shameful for the movie makers to have used a disability and disabled people as props for a feelgood story that denies reality as much as the little girl does.

TEBergh Everyone I know thinks this movie is weird, until I make them rewatch the beginning and pay close attention. Then they love it.Whoever trashed this movie regarding the autism obviously did not watch it. The child was NOT austistic. She was trying to handle her father's death with things she learned from her Mayan archaeologist friend.I think if you have any brain in your head and have an attention span large enough to actually watch the whole movie, it is thoroughly enjoyable.

GitYoFunOn "House of Cards" is such a murky film it's a wonder its makers would think it watchable. The plot, which involves a mother's journey to try to reach her young daughter after she has developed autistic-like characteristics, is hard nut to crack. To be fair there is a meek explanation for the child's behavior but it does not hold up. Even stage vet Kathleen Turner and the excellent Tommy Lee Jones can't save this film from the highly symbolic mess it is. It is hard to think of many serious films where one has not come to understand the characters and couldn't care less.