Educational Media Reviews Online

Adventures of a T-Man is a documentary film that focuses on the life of Terrence Fenner. He self-discloses as having mild autism. He lives in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he works at a mail sorting facility with a pilot program the company is using to employ adults with autism. At the start of the film, Terrence lives with his aging parents, and as he is in his mid-twenties, he has a goal of living independently. An achievable goal he makes is to rent his first apartment, and there are challenges mentioned. To not spoil much, this film does conclude with a positive message.

This documentary shares a visible example of how a person with a disability can have success with established support and guidance. Established micro supports in Terrence’s life are his family, friends, people in the agency where he worked. Macro supports are government aid for people with disabilities with transportation resources and established funding for the job agency.

On the other hand, Terrence’s experience may not apply to everyone’s situation. Every state may have different nonprofit agencies, the cost of living is different for every state, and is this steady employment after support runs out? Terrence touch briefly on this issue. Also, for people with autism, how many of these types of jobs are applicable, the documentary shows Terrence already having a support network and even as the documentary ends, it appears that there is an unspoken number of aids Terrence will still need.

There is a good deal of internal reflection that viewers can see with Terrence while he works toward goals with his neurodivergent status. People with disabilities working at gainful employment is a continuing social challenge, so it is good to see the experiences of an individual and how society can work with him on maintaining employment and working with self-independence.

Adventures of T-Man is a documentary that can be purchased and added to an existing job searching collection so that people of all backgrounds can be aware of this title. This is a coming-of-age documentary that is suitable to be watched by teenagers to adults as Terrence can be seen as a role model. Yet with the reasons pointed out that the focus of this documentary is only on one person, it may be seen that this is a very narrow point of view. My recommendation is to purchase with some reservations.

Awards:
2020 Raleigh Film and Art Festival, Best Documentary

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