Prozac Nation

I thought to myself, as I watched this, about what I would've thought of it if it had come out a few years earlier than its intended release in 2001. If it had come out in the mid-90's, when angst and depression were intertwined with the culture and Gen X's arrival at young adulthood. Would I have found comfort and camaraderie in Christina Ricci's portrayal of Elizabeth, a young woman with amazing promise that is anchored by clinical depression? Would I have have seen an worst-case-scenario reflection of myself as her depression spirals out of control, ruining relationships, and derailing her education, while she wonders why nobody can relate or help her? Would I have found solace in it, a (God, I hate this phrase) spokesperson for my generation and our troubles? I'll never know the answer to that. But I do know how I see it now, 20+ years removed from that scared, scarred, cynical young man. I'm 18 years married to a woman who battles depression every day. I have a fifteen year old son who does as well. And I lost a nephew to suicide. Depression -- that ugly, cancerous, toxic beast that overrides logic, crushes hope, overshadows love, and obliterates reason -- has touched my life for a long time now. I've seen what it can do to people first-hand, and I continue to see it every day. This movie is not pretty, and it is not entertaining. It is hard. It is harrowing. It is frightening. In it, I saw so much of what I've seen and experienced; depression undermining confidence and reason, causing the sufferer to lash out, say cruel and monstrous things in one breath and apologize for it and feel true, crushing regret with the next. Depression's hooks sinking into someone's brain, making basic human interactions and routines borderline impossible. Knowing the action they're about to take is wrong, dangerous, destructive, or all three, and doing it anyway, because there's something inside them -- a terrible, malicious passenger -- pushing them to do it. This movie paints it in the harshest, realist light, the most plain and simple terms. Elizabeth is torn between two divorced parents who hate each other, and who cannot understand or cope with their daughter's depression; they blame her, they judge her, they think there's an easy fix, "it's just a bad day". But she's pressured into being something she knows she can't live up to. She goes away to college, where she is left alone with her thoughts. She experiences some success, far too early, and it sets the bar too high. She can't keep relationships going -- friends or romantic interests. She takes drugs and drinks to numb the pain. She goes to therapy but fights it. Her friends try to help, but they don't know how, and after being burned so many times, they cut her off. It's all very much how the cycle of depression works, and how it affects both the person with it and the people around that sufferer. When the movie ends, its not a sunny-day Hollywood ending. People with depression aren't cured. It's like addiction; it's not a battle you WIN, end of statement, but an ongoing process you FIGHT. It's why the symbol for suicide prevention is a semi-colon; it indicates the sentence isn't over, and neither is the fight. Christina Ricci's performance is breathtaking, and in a fair world, would've been recognized with a gold statue. Elizabeth's depression isn't angsty or mopey; it's a malevolent force, whiplashing her through her life. The movie never paints her as bad or wrong; she makes misguided, terrible choices, but she can't think straight. Her corrupted brain won't allow it. And because this is set in the 80's, long before discussions of depression and mental health were more accepted (though we still have miles to go), her friends and family are portrayed accurately; they don't understand. They think she's just a train wreck, a bitch, a basket case. They try to cope, they try to support, they try to understand, but they're not equipped to do it anymore than she is. Her friends are young and have their own problems. Her mom has her own mental illness that she can't even admit to. There are no good guys here, no bad guys either. There's just a person drowning, and everybody's got a rope, but they don't see that so does Elizabeth, except hers tied to her feet at one end, and an anchor at the other. Jason Biggs, Michelle Williams, and Jessica Lange all put in fantastic performances as people within Elizabeth's radioactive orbit. The other elements of filmmaking work amazingly well to support the feelings of loneliness and depression. There's a haunting musical motif, a simple piano piece maybe six notes long, that echoes throughout, that will tear at you. The camerawork, at first, seems simple, but there are some fantastic shots, my favorite being one with Elizabeth riding a train. The camera is pointed outside to watch the blur of the passing landscape; you see Elizabeth's reflection in the window, but because it's a window, the reflection is transparent. Elizabeth is as much a hollow ghost to us as she is herself, and the scenery is a mindless blur, much like life is to Elizabeth. The only element that keeps this from being a five-star story is one that, paradoxically, I don't think it could've survived, and that is to be longer and not edited with such a breakneck pace. At 90 minutes, it feels like sometimes, we're getting cliffnotes versions of events (this is based on a true story). Elizabeth tells a doctor that she is "living proof therapy doesn't work" because of failed therapy in her youth ... and then is seeing that same doctor in therapy 90 seconds later. I don't know if another 15 minutes would've turned the movie into a slog, but I know that it seems like the movie doesn't have what Elizabeth's therapist says Prozac will give her: breathing space. That one tiny little nick in the armor is not enough from this being the most honest, ugly, forthright portrait of depression in a movie I've ever seen. There isn't a hint of the way early 90's movies like Singles or Pump Up The Volume reveled in angst. Seeking help isn't treated like some kind of weakness or anathema like in so many other movies. And love isn't treated like some kind of emotional life preserver, like Garden State. This is as honest as it gets, and when you have lived with it, it cuts to the bone. I appreciate the honesty. I marvel at how well they did capturing it. And I also understand that may be what may keep people away from it. But it shouldn't.