The film adaptation of Sharon M. Draper’s 2010 novel Out of My Mind, which won multiple awards, has arrived. The feature-length film is available for streaming on Disney+ as of November 22.

Out of My Mind centers around 11-year-old Melody Brooks, who has cerebral palsy, is non-verbal, and uses a wheelchair. When Melody enters fifth grade, she’s excited for the opportunity to learn more and meet new people, but quickly discovers that both educators and her peers underestimate her capabilities. Refusing to be deterred by the expectations of those around her, Melody finds ways to have her thoughts heard.

The film stars Phoebe-Rae Taylor as Melody Brooks, Rosemarie DeWitt as Diane Brooks, Luke Kirby as Chuck Brooks, Michael Chernus as Mr. Dimming, Courtney Taylor as Dr. Katherine Ray, Judith Light as Mrs. V, and Jennifer Aniston as Melody’s inner voice. Amber Sealey was director and Daniel Stiepleman served as writer; Peter Saraf, Robert Kessel, Dan Angel, and Michael B. Clark were producers.

Saraf was introduced to Draper’s novel through his own daughter, who in the fourth grade “just absolutely fell in love with the book. She thought it would make a great movie, and it was a really good pitch. And I read the book and agreed with her.”

Draper met with Dan Angel back in 2013 about a possible screen adaptation, and he optioned the book, but it was years before the project came to fruition. In 2022, Disney Branded Television announced its adaptation, in collaboration with Big Beach, Participant, and EveryWhere Studio. Draper was not heavily involved in the creative process, but was consulted as the script underwent changes over the years.

For the author, the most important aspect of the film’s adaptation was for the character of Melody to be “fairly represented. It’s really easy when you’re making a movie about a character with disabilities to focus on the disabilities,” Draper said. “To focus on the sadness. But instead, they focused on her strengths. They focused on what she could do. They focused on her abilities, rather than her disabilities.”

The film’s dedication to inclusiveness was matched by the cast and crew on and off set, according to Saraf. He and the entire team made a concentrated effort to ensure that individuals on set of every ability would feel safe by creating an “all access team, which was a group of about five people working both on the creative side of making sure that the storytelling was correct, but also on the practical side, making sure that all of our sets, our transportation, our facilities were physically accessible, and met the needs of everybody on set,” Saraf said. “What that did was it attuned everybody who was working on the film to making it a welcoming environment for all.”

In terms of performance, Saraf and Draper agree that Phoebe-Rae Taylor, who hadn’t acted before this role, is the film’s beating heart. “We saw hundreds of tapes of girls for the role, and she clearly stood out,” Saraf said of the worldwide search for the movie’s protagonist. “Her performance is rather extraordinary because she was a natural on camera, and she gives a beautiful, nuanced, emotional performance.”

“She is a brilliant actress who happens to have cerebral palsy, and she was just outstanding,” Draper said of Taylor’s performance. “She has wonderful ways of passing along what she’s feeling—her fears, her tears, her disappointment, her anger.”

After a decade’s worth of effort to bring this film to life, what Saraf hopes viewers take away is that “we always need to have the patience to listen to the way that people communicate if they’re communicating differently from us. That requires a certain amount of empathy, a certain amount of patience, and a certain amount of curiosity, and I think that is something we can carry into our lives in general.”

Draper said she feels “humbled and honored” that her book has been brought to life so many years later and that it still has such an impact. “We’re making a difference with this movie,” she said, “because it’s making a statement to kids with disabilities that, yes, you have a voice, and yes, you can be seen, and yes, you can be heard.”