Disney movies rightfully take a lot of flak. Whether it’s a history of depicting racial stereotypes, perpetuating unrealistic body images and gender roles or glorifying high social status, there is no shortage of reasons for 21st century parents to grouse about the Mouse. There’s also no denying how these decades-spanning iconic films are adored by children and revered nostalgically by many adults. And for some, Disney films even move beyond entertainment or escapism and actually become a lifeline to a whole new world.

Owen Suskind is one such person. When he was three years old, Owen’s parents became distraught as their bubbly toddler rapidly began retreating into himself. His early verbal skills regressed to “gibberish” and he was so removed emotionally that they felt as though the son they knew had been “kidnapped.” Before long, an autism diagnosis came down, and this being the mid-’90s, the prognosis for this stigmatized developmental disability wasn’t especially good. The one thing that Ron and Cornelia Suskind knew their nonverbal son enjoyed was watching animated Disney movies over and over. Then, he quoted one.

After years of frustration, the Suskinds placed plenty of significance into the fact that, while watching The Little Mermaid, Owen chose to repeat the villainous Ursula’s line, “Just your voice.” Doctors were skeptical, pointing to a far likelier case of echolalia (or parrot-like mimicry) than anything meaningful. It’s fitting, then, that Ron would have his first significant conversation with young Owen through a fictional parrot. Through a hand-puppet of Aladdin’s Iago (and a spot-on Gilbert Gottfried impersonation), Ron was able to create a bridge into Owen’s insular world. The Suskinds soon realized that the exaggerated gestures and facial expressions of Disney film characters better allowed Owen to understand their emotions and thereby empathize with characters. As the years progressed, he’d become most interested in the sidekicks, even considering himself their protector in his childhood sketches.

While this type of background is beautifully rendered in interviews with Owen’s parents, with gaps filled in by his older brother, Walter, Life, Animated spends much of its runtime showing us the modern-day Owen encountering major milestones. Now in his early 20s, he’s remarkably high-functioning, and we see him encounter rites of passage such as graduation, exploring the ups and downs of a romantic relationship and moving into his own assisted-living apartment. Owen still turns to his vast collection of Disney films (often VHS tapes) and engrosses himself in stories that are often hand-picked to mirror his current feelings.

In addition to effective hand-drawn animation that illustrates Owen’s fears and struggles, we also get quite a bit of Disney footage. Notoriously protective of its property, Disney no doubt signed off on the rights to these many segments because they cast the corporation in such positive light. This has both benefits and drawbacks to the documentary, as the snippets certainly enhance the viewing experience but also shift the focus too greatly onto the cartoon-based aspect of Owen’s development. After all, unlike Ron Suskind’s book of the same name, Life, Animated doesn’t spend much time discussing non-Disney related elements of Owen’s adolescent years and the other obstacles the family had to overcome. Much like Disney movies themselves, this perhaps paints Life, Animated in a light that’s too simplistically inspirational. The film’s scope is solely on Owen, rather than exploring the autism spectrum in a broader context. Late in the film, we get an inkling of this when Walter mentions his concern about his eventual duty in ensuring that Owen gets the supports he needs once their parents pass away. But the reality is that Ron Suskind is a well-educated Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author. Children like Owen who are not born into such an affluent situation do not receive the same level of attention or extensive care, Disney films or not.

Those quibbles aside, you’d have to possess a heart of stone not to enjoy seeing Owen’s small (and sometimes not so small) personal triumphs. What the film lacks in tough questions, it makes up for with earnestness and the joy of seeing perseverance rewarded. Our understanding of the autism spectrum grows with each passing year, and we as a society are now better equipped to reach these kids where they’re at and not simply try to pound a square peg into a round hole. Nobody gets to live happily ever after, but Life, Animated tenderly shows us that, with enough hard work, magical things can still happen.