# Movies that portray mental illness **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 12, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357 "2010-07-12T03:24:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/41 "2010-07-13T15:01:08Z")
Also speaking of Johnny Depp, [What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0108550/). Father committed suicide; obese, agraphobic mother, mentally retarded younger brother, and Gilbert is pretty much drifiting through life. ETA: Maybe we should hold the Depp Mentally Ill Film Festival! ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/42 "2010-07-13T15:16:34Z")
Rainman. Goes without saying. ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/43 "2010-07-13T15:25:03Z")
" I Never Promised You a Rose garden" was a pretty good movie of an unbalanced teenager. ---
**Author:** ![Horatio\_Hellpop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e5b9ba/32.png) [@Horatio\_Hellpop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Horatio_Hellpop)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/44 "2010-07-13T15:25:53Z")
Prozac Nation ---
**Author:** ![gonzomax](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e8c25b/32.png) [@gonzomax](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gonzomax)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/45 "2010-07-13T15:26:42Z")
In the 50s there was ‘The Three Faces of Eve’. It was about multiple personalities. ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 7:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/46 "2010-07-13T19:07:05Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Does alcoholism count? If so, Billy Wilder’s [The Lost Weekend](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0037884/) (1945) is tops. As is Blake Edwards’ [Days of Wine and Roses](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055895/) (1962). For something more recent there’s [28 Days](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191754/). ---
**Author:** ![Green\_Bean](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/green_bean/32/1760_2.png) [@Green\_Bean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Green_Bean)\ **Post date:** [July 13, 2010, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/47 "2010-07-13T19:43:47Z")
Are you going to be showing whole movies or clips? What about Hannibal Lecter? Would it be possible to use some well-known real life examples in addition to movies? Perhaps Bashir’s documentary about Michael Jackson? Also, if you’re just showing clips, maybe there’s something from Monk that’s both accurate and humorous. (And if not Adrian, there’s always his brother Ambrose.) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/48 "2010-07-14T02:19:30Z")
> [@Lute Skywatcher](#): > > For something more recent there’s [28 Days](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0191754/). Yes, but I was trying to list _good_ movies. ---
**Author:** ![Pyper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Pyper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pyper)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/49 "2010-07-14T02:39:35Z")
Can I just nitpick and point out that autism is a neurological disorder, not a mental illness? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f07891/32.png) [@Little\_Plastic\_Ninja](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Plastic_Ninja)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/50 "2010-07-14T03:43:07Z")
> [@Lo-Slung\_Denim](#): > > There was one recently with Jamie Foxx as a homeless guy with mental illness but he also had some kind of synaesthesia(if that is the right word) and made beautiful music with beautiful pretty swirly things…only saw the trailer, never watched it, because it looked like patronising rubbish. It did not go the way I thought it would. So the guy’s a gifted musician. And when he’s playing he’s almost normal. Almost normal. At least he is as content as he ever gets. He just can’t play in front of large groups of people, as I recall. He makes the connection with the newspaper reporter and then becomes slightly obsessed with him: this is the only real ‘friend’ he has, who’s been treating him and seeing him like a project, a story. And so has the audience. They’re all expecting that eventually some kind of normal living or therapy or drug is just going to normal him right up. _And it doesn’t._ Because the world and mental illness just don’t work like that. Instead of magical musicboxes making people sane or some other kind of simple fix, the guy stays crazy. He can’t even live in an apartment he doesn’t have to pay rent for. Pandering it may be, but schmaltzy it ain’t. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/51 "2010-07-14T03:56:35Z")
_A Beautiful Mind_ is pretty horrendously inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![NetTrekker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/nettrekker/32/2909_2.png) [@NetTrekker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NetTrekker)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/52 "2010-07-14T04:00:56Z")
One of my all-time favorites: What About Bob? (OCD, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/53 "2010-07-14T04:15:19Z")
[Harvey](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0042546/)🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@Sleeps\_With\_Butterflies](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sleeps_With_Butterflies)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/54 "2010-07-14T04:40:39Z")
_The Hours? Mr Jones? Punch Drunk Love?_ ---
**Author:** ![devilsknew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4da419/32.png) [@devilsknew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/devilsknew)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/55 "2010-07-14T04:52:00Z")
> [@Wendell\_Wagner](#): > > _A Beautiful Mind_ is pretty horrendously inaccurate. No, it’s not. - it’s simply highly stylized and condensed for the screen. Any fault that it hieronymouses is simply the fault of writers and cinematography. I believe that the way it was presented to “sane” audiences, as an expansion and unfolding, drew the people into a moment of suspended disbelief. My only complaint is that it was not duly horrific. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/56 "2010-07-14T14:10:03Z")
What does “hieronymouses” mean? Some points where it’s inaccurate (I’m going by what the book _A Beautiful Mind_ says. Since that was what the movie was based on, the filmmakers must have known that these points were wrong): 1. Nash didn’t have any hallucinations back in grad school. He certainly didn’t imagine a roommate. He didn’t really have any significant symptoms of schizophrenia till he was thirty. Until then it’s arguable that he was kind of a jerk, but he didn’t act crazy in any normal sense. He didn’t have a grand illusion that he worked for the government as some sort of a secret freelance codebreaker. He did work for the government during his summers while teaching at MIT at the Rand Corporation in California doing some classified work, but this was something that everyone knew about. 2. All his romantic relationships before meeting his wife are simply dropped in the film. No mention is made of the longtime girlfriend who he had a baby with. Nash decided at some point after the baby was born that he wasn’t interested in either of them, so he just quit seeing them and didn’t pay any child support. No mention is made in the movie of his homosexual relationships either. No mention is made of his arrest at a restroom on a California beach for soliciting homosexual sex from an undercover policeman. This charge was dropped, but it cost him his security clearance and his job at Rand. 3. Jennifer Connelly looks like Nash’s wife only in that both are dark-haired and pretty. Nash’s wife is Hispanic and much shorter. No mention is made in the movie of the fact that Nash’s wife divorced him after he became schizophrenic and didn’t remarry him till almost thirty years later. Really, read the book. I don’t have time to list all the ways in which the movie is inaccurate. ---
**Author:** ![NDP](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ndp/32/55_2.png) [@NDP](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NDP)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/57 "2010-07-14T18:09:31Z")
> [@devilsknew](#): > > No, it’s not. - it’s simply highly stylized and condensed for the screen. Any fault that it hieronymouses is simply the fault of writers and cinematography. I believe that the way it was presented to “sane” audiences, as an expansion and unfolding, drew the people into a moment of suspended disbelief. My only complaint is that it was not duly horrific. That was one flaw I felt the movie had. **A Beautiful Mind** is probably one of the few examples of a Hollywood biography toning down and not exaggerating the events of its subject’s life. For one thing, Nash’s delusions and hallucinations were far more elaborate than those depicted in the movie (e.g., for a time he believed he was the emperor of Antarctica). As a result, I don’t think you got a full sense of how Nash experienced both genius and insanity. For that, I believe it would’ve been better [Darren Aronofsky](http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darren_Aronofsky) had directed the movie rather than Ron Howard. [QUOTE=Wendell Wagner] Jennifer Connelly looks like Nash’s wife only in that both are dark-haired and pretty. Nash’s wife is Hispanic and much shorter [/QUOTE] So, for the sake of physical accuracy, it would’ve been better if they’d cast Salma Hayek in the role rather than Jennifer Connelly? ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/58 "2010-07-14T18:25:30Z")
> [@Siam\_Sam](#): > > Yes, but I was trying to list _good_ movies. > [@beckwall](#): > > Movies from the past few years would be best since these students are YOUNG and would be bored by a “crazy” Jack Nicholson. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 14, 2010, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/59 "2010-07-14T19:36:00Z")
> [@NDP](#): > > …So, for the sake of physical accuracy, it would’ve been better if they’d cast Salma Hayek in the role rather than Jennifer Connelly? No objection! Although it would’ve been sweet if Nash’s hallucinations had included being simultaneously married to TWO Hollywood babes… ---
**Author:** ![beckwall](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b487fb/32.png) [@beckwall](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beckwall)\ **Post date:** [July 15, 2010, 12:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357/60 "2010-07-15T00:44:09Z")
> [@lawoot](#): > > I hate saying it, but why worry about foul language? Anyone who is easily offended by obscenity probably shouldn’t go into psych nursing to begin with (I’ve worked on a locked in-patient ward for over ten years - even the KIDS swear like sailors). I’m not worried about offending anyone. However, I have some 18 and 19 year old students and I don’t want them going home to their parents (yes, they still live at home) and say “Guess what we watched in class today?”, especially since the parents are paying $25,000 for their kid to go through nursing school. And just because they are having a psych unit in their education doesn’t necessarily mean they will go into psych nursing. I doubt any of them are interested in it that much. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/movies-that-portray-mental-illness/546357.md?page=4)