'Please Stand By' Is a Touching Road Trip Drama About a Young Woman on the Spectrum Who Loves 'Star Trek'

Please Stand By tells the story of Wendy (Dakota Fanning), a young autistic woman who deeply loves Star Trek.  After a meeting with her sister Audrey (Alice Eve) that didn’t go well, she decides to run away from her care home and take a road trip to Los Angeles so she can submit the 500-page script she wrote for a Star Trek writing competition.  As she works out a series of hurdles to beat the deadline, her sister and her dedicated caregiver (Toni Collette) scramble to look for her.

The premise of this film greatly interested me when I saw the trailer.  Here’s a protagonist on the spectrum whose fandom becomes the tool for her to overcome the difficulty of expressing herself and be the driving force for her journey of self-realization.  It crosses a bit with some of the “power of fandom” themes of Brigsy Bear, but it approaches them at a fresh angle.

I don’t know how realistic the film’s take on autism is, but I like how it thoughtfully shows how someone dealing with developmental or social disorders may find refuge in a pop culture property or a work of fiction, wherein he or she can find a world to connect to and a character to identify with (in the case of Wendy, it’s with Spock).  This can then serve as the way for him or her to learn life lessons or develop meaningful worldviews that are impossible to acquire in his or her usual dealings with the real world.  In addition, a common love (or, at least, familiarity) with this pop culture property may prove to be the way for him or her to open up and communicate with others.  There’s this terrific scene where a uniformed cop, played by real-life nerd Patton Oswalt, is able to win Wendy’s trust by talking to her in Klingon.

Please Stand By is a beautiful, touching drama.  The performances are compelling, especially from Dakota Fanning (though, again, I don’t know if the portrayal of autism is accurate).  And though the script has some clichéd executions, I nonetheless liked their effect on the narrative.  How the third act plays out is especially so satisfying.  All in all, this film completely gave me the feels.