Tag: frankie & alice

Mind At War: Nate’s Top Ten Films on Mental Illness

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

The subject of mental illness is one that’s close and important to me as I myself am one of the afflicted, and it’s impossible to ignore that the treatment of it by Hollywood, particularly in formative years, hasn’t been so apt. Don’t get me wrong, I love stuff like Me, Myself & Irene or Split as entertainment but in terms of accurately representing the conditions that beset human beings, they haven’t been so hot. There are those films and filmmakers out there that strive to educate and enlighten or even just to craft an effective thriller or comedy and still stay true to real life, doing important work for the collective awareness and making terrific art/entertainment in one shot. Here are my personal top ten favourites!

10. Geoffrey Sax’s Frankie & Alice

Multiple personality disorders are popular in Hollywood but there’s a tendency to mock, sensationalize or tell a ‘real life’ story that’s later proved as fraud. This one showcases Halle Berry in a galvanizing dual performance as a go-go dancer afflicted by two very different internal identities and finding her life in splinters as a result. When a kind, compassionate psychiatrist (Stellan Skarsgard) makes it his mission to help her get back on track it becomes apparent just how challenging and horrific it must be to endure such a thing.

9. Dito Montiel’s Man Down

I heard this one sold one single theatrical ticket in the UK and didn’t fare much better here, getting squeaked into a quiet streaming release. It’s too bad because it is one haunting drama about PTSD featuring an implosive, incredibly intense performance from Shia LaBeouf as an ex marine who can’t psychologically reconcile his experience and is lost amongst his own trauma. Terrific work from Kate Mara as his wife and Gary Oldman as an army counsellor too.

8. James Mangold’s Girl Interrupted

Likely the most accessible and mainstream story on this list, Mangold’s look at a mental care facility for girls in the 60’s gets a superficial rep in some circles but I find it to be every bit the rewarding drama, ensemble piece and explorative journey that those who champion it say. Winona Ryder plays a wayward girl whose self destructive behaviour lands her there but it’s Angelina Jolie as a fellow patient diagnosed with borderline personality disorder that both anchors the film and provides it with a wildly unpredictable streak.

7. Martin Scorsese’s Shutter Island

This is of course a big old elaborate mystery film with a gigantic cast, many red herrings, tons of subplots and all kinds of stylistic fanfare. But if you look past all that there’s a harrowing and very realistic portrait of minds irreparably damaged, between Leo Dicaprio’s PTSD afflicted ex soldier and Michelle Williams in a haunting turn as his deeply sick wife. The film overall is a tantalizing guessing game and broadly covers the thriller board but the final act brings it right down to earth for a grounded, grim finale showcasing the brutal honesty of these illnesses and the heart wrenching tragedy they beget.

6. Terry Gilliam’s The Fisher King

Robin Williams gives one of his best performances as Parry, a once successful professor of medieval history who lost his mind following the death of his wife and now wanders the streets of NYC, homeless. Jeff Bridges is the radio DJ who befriends and tries to understand him and their relationship carries the film. So to does Gilliam’s knack for surreal visual storytelling, letting these fantastical creations run wild and giving us a glimpse into Parry’s damaged but fascinating mind.

5. Brad Anderson’s The Machinist

Christian Bale’s Trevor Reznik hasn’t slept in a year. Guilt, extreme weight loss and delusions are just the start of his problems. This is billed as and feels like a thriller but I think that’s deliberate on director Anderson’s part to put us in the hot seat next to Trevor, to make us feel the same paranoia and delusions of persecution he does. The atmosphere here is almost suffocating, the score a muted tangle of busted nerves and Bale’s performance something just this side of unearthly. When it all comes together and we see why he is the way he is it’s deeply sad but makes a kind of terrible sense and gives the film a final stab of emotional weight.

4. Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace

PTSD is only vaguely hinted at in this beautiful father daughter drama but it’s there in every frame, in every mannerism of Ben Fosters masterful performance. Him and newcomer Thomasin Mackenzie achingly display a family dynamic that has been set off balance by his illness, and the wedge it has driven both between them and between him and ever living a normal life again. This is a restrained yet heartbreaking film that gently unpacks its themes with kindness and compassion, letting a devastating final scene bring the whole point home heavily but somehow lightly in the same note.

3. David Cronenberg’s Spider

Ralph Fiennes give a focused, intense turn as the titular individual, a man released from a mental care facility and relegated to a London halfway house where all the scrambled and tumultuous memories of his past come tumbling down through the scattered web of his broken mind and into the present. Recollections of his parents (Gabriel Byrne and Miranda Richardson) are somehow shrouded from himself, by himself and as he tirelessly works to regain his sanity, he slips further away from it. Cronenberg uses shadows, dimly lit alleys and creaky, barren rooms to show how this character has been cast away from his own perception and wanders about like a lost soul.

2. Bill Pohlad’s Love & Mercy

The life and times of Beach Boys pioneer Brian Wilson are explored here, namely at two important junctures in his life. Paul Dano plays him younger, at the height of fame and success but poised on the cusp of a psychotic breakdown after stress and an unhealthy relationship with his abusive father (Bill Camp) reach a fever pitch. Decades later John Cusack embodies a much older Wilson, stuck under the tyrannical yoke of an evil, manipulative psychiatrist (Paul Giamatti) until he meets the love of his life (Elizabeth Banks) and a chance at a fresh start along with her. The scene of Dano putting recording headphones over his ears and closing his eyes in horror as he hears voices is one of the most brutally honest and realistic depictions of auditory hallucinations you can find in film. Wilson had a rough life and the film makes that very clear but it’s never ever sensationalist or exploitive and overall has a message about love, light and working endlessly to overcome any demons or struggles thrown into your path.

1. Kasi Lemmons’ The Caveman’s Valentine

Samuel L. Jackson gives a career best as schizophrenic former musician Romulus, a man afflicted by terrible hallucinations and delusions to the point that when he discovers a genuine murder conspiracy no one, including his police officer daughter (Aunjanue Ellis) believes him. This film is driven by a fascinating mystery narrative that takes Romulus from his cave in Central Park into the pretentious New York art world and beyond to find a killer. At heart though director Lemmons let’s it m be a serious minded exploration of what it must be like to live like that, to be constantly sabotaged by your own mind. Jackson’s brilliant performance and Lemmons effective use of surreal, mesmerizing imagery give us a compassionate, dynamic window into this man’s mind and in turn a unique, thought provoking piece of cinema.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more content!

-Nate Hill

Frankie & Alice: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  

There needs to be more films about mental illness that treat the subject with the vital care and compassion that Frankie & Alice does. It should be re-titled ‘The Halle Berry and Stelllen Skarsgard Show’, because for just over 90 minutes the two of them give some of the bravest, challenging work of their career in telling this story. Granted, it takes a few liberties with what we know about multiple personality disorder and what still to this day lurks in the shadows of the vast human consciousness, but it’s in service to character and story and is never exploitative. This film was made in 2010 and mired in distribute hell for nearly four years before dropping off of a most unceremonious assembly line into weak marketing. No one I’ve asked has even heard about it, which is a shame because it’s Berry at her most shattering, sexy and charismatic, and it’s somewhat based on a true story as well. She plays Frankie here, a wayward exotic dancer prone to destructive episodes in which Alice, an alternative personality, takes over and wreaks havoc in her personal life. Alice is a racist, southern white girl and Frankie is a black stripper in 1970’s New York. You can imagine the predicament. She ends up in a psychiatric halfway house under the care of Dr. Oz (Stellen Skarsgard) a man who is not remotely familiar with the term ‘giving up’. He sees the issues with Frankie clear as day, where his shirt tucking colleagues (Matt Frewer and Brian Markinson) are skeptical and impatient with his process. Oz is trying to unlock the secrets of Franki’s mind through the knowledge of each alter personality, all of whom are related to a tragic incident in her past that we get brief, fractured glimpses of through the broken prism of her mind. Director Geoffrey Sax keeps the melodrama to an agreeable minimum and let’s his two leads feel their way through the work both through each other and the material. Berry and Skarsgard have never been better, setting one another alight with the kind of chemistry many lead pairs can only dream of. Berry writhes with fury, confusion and loneliness, her coherence a flower that begins to bloom when Oz shows her kindness and the desire to really help her, something which. O one has ever done for her before in life. Skarsgard is an interesting guy because he’s equally great at inhabiting cold, sociopathic villains (King Arthur, Ronin) and he’s also compassion manifest when he wants to be (Passion Of Mind, Powder Keg). The performance he gives here radiates with warmth and assurance, a lighthouse in the fog of Frankie’s illness. Newcomer Vanessa Morgan is also excellent as the 16 year old version of Frankie, caught in a hailstorm of racism and sadness that no doubt are the seeds for her future condition. I’d love to know more about the real story of Frankie, and see how it contrasts with the film. Even if the differences are great and the liberties taken are considerable, we are in the end left with a superbly made film that takes mental illness head on and is one step further in erasing the stigma. A film that’s woefully unseen, so,etching I hope this review will change.  

Frankie & Alive: A Review by Nate Hill

by natewatchescoolmovies, posted in Film Review

  

There needs to be more films about mental illness that treat the subject with the vital care and compassion that Frankie & Alice does. It should be re-titled ‘The Halle Berry and Stelllen Skarsgard Show’, because for just over 90 minutes the two of them give some of the bravest, challenging work of their career in telling this story. Granted, it takes a few liberties with what we know about multiple personality disorder and what still to this day lurks in the shadows of the vast human consciousness, but it’s in service to character and story and is never exploitative. This film was made in 2010 and mired in distribute hell for nearly four years before dropping off of a most unceremonious assembly line into weak marketing. No one I’ve asked has even heard about it, which is a shame because it’s Berry at her most shattering, sexy and charismatic, and it’s somewhat based on a true story as well. She plays Frankie here, a wayward exotic dancer prone to destructive episodes in which Alice, an alternative personality, takes over and wreaks havoc in her personal life. Alice is a racist, southern white girl and Frankie is a black stripper in 1970’s New York. You can imagine the predicament. She ends up in a psychiatric halfway house under the care of Dr. Oz (Stellen Skarsgard) a man who is not remotely familiar with the term ‘giving up’. He sees the issues with Frankie clear as day, where his shirt tucking colleagues (Matt Frewer and Brian Markinson) are skeptical and impatient with his process. Oz is trying to unlock the secrets of Franki’s mind through the knowledge of each alter personality, all of whom are related to a tragic incident in her past that we get brief, fractured glimpses of through the broken prism of her mind. Director Geoffrey Sax keeps the melodrama to an agreeable minimum and let’s his two leads feel their way through the work both through each other and the material. Berry and Skarsgard have never been better, setting one another alight with the kind of chemistry many lead pairs can only dream of. Berry writhes with fury, confusion and loneliness, her coherence a flower that begins to bloom when Oz shows her kindness and the desire to really help her, something which. O one has ever done for her before in life. Skarsgard is an interesting guy because he’s equally great at inhabiting cold, sociopathic villains (King Arthur, Ronin) and he’s also compassion manifest when he wants to be (Passion Of Mind, Powder Keg). The performance he gives here radiates with warmth and assurance, a lighthouse in the fog of Frankie’s illness. Newcomer Vanessa Morgan is also excellent as the 16 year old version of Frankie, caught in a hailstorm of racism and sadness that no doubt are the seeds for her future condition. I’d love to know more about the real story of Frankie, and see how it contrasts with the film. Even if the differences are great and the liberties taken are considerable, we are in the end left with a superbly made film that takes mental illness head on and is one step further in erasing the stigma. A film that’s woefully unseen, so,etching I hope this review will change.