As an autistic person, this movie is disgusting, to put it simply. It's ableist as hell. Sia COULD have hired an actual autistic person, but it feels like she just wanted an excuse to put Maddie in the movie. And when asked by autistic people why she didn't hire someone with the actual condition, she got both aggressive and defensive, even lashing out at some of us.
She also mentions that she did her research on people like us, which from the movie, it's clear it was with a charity called Autism Speaks. They view autistic people as someone that needs curing and treat autistic people like a cancer cell or monsters that need to be eradicated. When you can't cure it and have campaigned to various states to convince parents that if their baby has autism, they should be aborted. Autistic people have gone on to do great things.
As I mentioned, it's as if she took all the ableist traits of Autism and said put that in. It's all incredibly stereotypical and yet another terrible movie with poor representation of actual autistic people like myself and millions of others.
It seems that us autistic people will never see proper representation in media.
I also harbor no ill will to Maddie as she was 14 during this, and after some searching, it was revealed that she was under contract and extremely uncomfortable throughout the entirety of the film, which is honestly disgusting, especially since Maddie views Sia as a mother figure. Forcing a kid when they're clearly uncomfortable is never okay.