Three young men head for a Montreal brothel in this uplifting, refreshingly non-judgmental road movie
This is a US remake of a 2013 Belgian
comedy, itself based on a
BBC documentary about disability rights activist Asta Philpot. Both features transform his true story into a refreshingly non-judgmental road movie in which three young men ditch their families and set off to a brothel in Montreal, hoping to get their “special” needs met.
Come As You Are would have been a worthwhile project even if it had been a shot-for-shot remake, repackaged for the subtitle-averse US market: the more people who get to see three-dimensional representation of people with disabilities, the better. But Erik Linthorst’s script makes improvements, too, including giving juvenile horndog Scotty (Grant Rosenmeyer) a talent for writing raps (sample lyric: “Half-man, half-machine / Not talking ’bout the chair / But what’s in-between / my legs”), and a delayed reveal of one crucial plot point. You may consider yourself the most pitiable speck in the universe, we’re reminded, but there’s always someone out there who’s got it worse.