Wednesday, April 15, 2015

Can mental illness be funny?

My family enjoyed watching the movie, It's kind of a funny story.
A teenager in New York is having suicidal thoughts and checks himself into a hospital psychiatric ward. Once in there he realises that he is much more “normal” than the other patients and
wants to get out, but is not allowed to.
The movie is somewhat humorous and entertaining. But, at times it is depressing, being confronted with mentally ill patients with little hope of healing.

On the positive side the movie does well raising the issue of mental health and the extreme pressures teenagers can be under, particularly those from families with upper middle class aspirations.
On the other hand, the movie is somewhat superficial and simplistic because the central character is “healed” by just learning to enjoy life, take up a hobby (drawing), appreciate his family more, and (of course since this is Hollywood) having a gorgeous girl friend.

An unrealistic aspect of the movie is that the star is able to check himself into the fancy private hospital without his parents permission and with no concern about payment for services.
Somehow I am skeptical this would happen in the USA.

1 comment:

  1. Always good to talk through the walk you get taken on my a film. thanks for sharing , I have the same feeling : Funny serious often stays seriously funny when incomplete - the paradox of accepting reality and the reality we don't know everything at the same time .Often we, the audience, want to put the worry to bed - not a good idea , I have a FB page Funny serious

    ReplyDelete