In treatment and characterization, Paa has a certain breeziness and a brand of humour which, although awkward and laboured in parts, tries to remind us that life is worth living even when it sucks. It reaffirms the same positivity canon that many mainstream Hollywood films exploit while depicting disease and death. Francis Ford Coppola’s Jack and Robert Zemeckis’ Forrest Gump are just two examples. But despite the good, Paa should just have been Auro’s story; it should have been a story more deeply committed to the child—and other children like him—and his unique condition.