It's as if the progress made in Slingblade and There's Something About Mary, films in which retarded people are allowed to be retarded without having to fall in love, had never been produced at all. Really, don't they deserve a better fate than active-ingredient status in the emotional snake oil dispensed by condescending Tinseltown smarmacists like Garry Marshall? At turns highly expressive or broodingly, beguilingly distant, the developmentally disabled are natural screen presences. In a more just world, they would appear in a variety of movie genres - and not just as comic relief or crosses to bear but as stars.