"Ik ben niks."

"Ik ben niks." = "I am nothing"

<Ben X> was opened in 2007 as a joint Belgian-Dutch film. Nic Balthazar, the director of this film, based the screenplay on his own novel “Nothing Was All He Said”. The novel depicted a true story of a boy who was diagnosed with autism. The boy was bullied for his disability and had to endure the torment for a very long time. In the end, he couldn’t cope with not being able to relieve himself of the stress of having to live with the bullies and committed suicide.

<Ben X> plays the story out on film, with a few adjustments. In <Ben X>, the main character, Ben, relieves his stress partially by playing an MMORPG online game, “Archlord”. In the game, Ben is able to express himself fully, creating an idealistic version of himself as “a level 80 warrior”. He also interacts with Scarlite, his “healer”, who is a fantastical girl who helps Ben with his anxiety. Like the boy in the novel, Ben is harassed mercilessly by his tormentors, who are his classmates. On the other hand, the movie has a happy ending as opposed to the novel’s sad one. Ben fakes his own suicide and films it for his arranged funeral, where video footage of his bullies is linked with the film and shown to everyone at the funeral, including the perpetrators themselves. At the end of the video, Ben emerges from the shadows to claim his “endgame”, the end of his life as a victim.

           There are a lot of films out there that concern themselves about social issues, such as teenage drinking and drugs. In recent years, the focus has turned to bullying and computer addiction amongst teenagers. <Ben X> is a movie that covers both and also psychological disabilities such as autism. Ben was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, played a lot of computer games, and was teased constantly by his peers. To incorporate these issues into one movie was very unique and interesting. In most cases, this kind of diversity would be more confusing to the viewers, but <Ben X> allowed its viewers to be aware of all these issues without much difficulty by intimately describing the intertwining subjects through Ben’s perspective, making this kind of flow in the movie one of its greatest strengths.

           Overall, the screenplay, the acting, and the topics this movie discussed were of good quality. Some of the twists in the story, such as the nonexistent “Scarlite”, were quite intriguing as well. Personally, it could have been better to end with Ben fixing his problem single-handedly without Scarlite or his parents. Ben could have been able to communicate his feelings through his words to others gradually, and eventually lessen the impact Asperger’s Syndrome had on his life. Although implausible, it could have sent a better message for those fighting these kinds of ailments by showing them that they could do it if they put their backs into it.

Score: 4.5 out of 5