Films about mental health are sticky territory, as their makers often use “creative license” as an excuse to misrepresent mental illnesses. Many films which gain critical acclaim for being “gritty” tales, end up fetishising “disturbed minds” and actually do nothing to create awareness about how mental illnesses work. That is why the few films which get the idea right and accurately portray conditions like depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, borderline personality disorder, and more, are worth watching, whether you have a mental illness yourself, or just want to educate yourself. Here, we list five such films.
Dear Zindagi
Image credits: Red Chillies Entertainment
What is depression? What is anxiety? Why should one get therapy? Dear Zindagi answered a lot of these basic questions which our society continues to struggle with. The irritability, the inability to get out of bed, the desolation, the frustration with not being understood by those who don’t understand mental illness —all these aspects of having depression were portrayed with accuracy by Alia Bhatt, whose own sister has opened up on her experience with depression.
Image credits: Red Chillies Entertainment
More importantly, in a country suspicious of therapists, this film showed how getting help from a professional helps combat mental health issues. It’s not enough to talk to parents or friends, and it is okay to seek out a psychologist. Shah Rukh Khan’s portrayal as the healer helped drive home that message.
Taare Zameen Par
Image credits: Aamir Khan Productions
Few people in India even knew what dyslexia was before Aamir Khan and Darsheel Safary’s ground-breaking film shed light on the subject. Kids who were told they were slow or stupid were actually diagnosed correctly, and people actually gained awareness about how dyslexia makes someone different, not less than anyone. Teachers and parents alike took note of the way the film showed dyslexia, and woke our school system up to the reality of learning disabilities.
Millions of unsuspecting parents spend years scolding children with the condition for having issues with reading, writing, and learning. This film changed that to a large extent. Movie halls were full of guilt-ridden parents shedding tears holding their children’s hands when Taare Zameen Par was playing.
15 Park Avenue
Image credits: SBS Telefilms
Not many can understand the intricacies of a mental health condition like schizophrenia without seeing someone go through life with it, which is what this film attempted to show. It wasn’t about solutions or happy endings, or “put yourself in the character’s shoes,” but about sensitising the audience by showing exactly how schizophrenia can create alternate universes in the minds of those suffering from it. It’s not always necessary to relate to something to understand it, and that’s the way this film positioned the narrative.
Only Konkona Sen and Shabana Azmi could have delivered a masterpiece like this with the sensitive yet realistic acting they are known for, minus the melodrama we often see in films which attempt to discuss mental health.
Sybil
Image credits: Lorimar Productions
An iconic story based on a book allegedly inspired by real-life events, Sybil is about a woman with undiagnosed dissociative identity disorder, which was earlier known as multiple personality disorder. A film set at a time when this mental health condition was pretty much unheard of, this film details how the woman in question navigates the multiple personalities she not only can’t make sense of, but is also afraid of. One moment she’s one person, the other moment, she’s someone else. Sometimes, she is even scared of her own other personalities.
Image credits: Lorimar Productions
The film shows how there are portions of her life she can’t remember, how she can’t control what her mind does, and how debilitating mental health conditions can be, especially if someone is living undiagnosed. In the end, the film also shows how her doctor helps her understand her condition and live with it, instead of fearing her own mind. A gripping story, Sybil is a film so intense that it is hard not to feel shaken up after watching it.
Girl, Interrupted
Image credits: Columbia Pictures
This film is based on a memoir by a woman called Susanna Kayson, who actually spent 400-odd days in a mental asylum, and went on to write about her experience. The author of the book is the main character in the film, a woman with borderline personality disorder called Susanna. She struggles to understand the gravity of her condition in the film, comparing herself to her fellow inmates at the institution, who also have a range of mental illnesses. Hence, Susanna is shown oscillating between not taking her own tendency to self-harm seriously, and struggling with others dismissing her mental illness. In one scene, as she is being driven to the asylum, the taxi driver comments, “Well you don’t look crazy,” proving how the film is about those people with mental health conditions who “don’t look crazy.”
Image credits: Columbia Pictures
The film has been criticised on many fronts, but it addresses important subjects related to the diagnosis of mental health problems. How debilitating does mental illness need to be in order for it to be taken seriously, both by the person who has it, and by those around them? Susanna is called a “lethargic, liberal young lady who is making herself insane” by one of the nurses at the institution where she checks in. Susanna herself dismisses her suicide attempt as something which isn’t a big deal. So, not only does the film show why people with mental illnesses often don’t ask for help due to lack of understanding about their own condition, but also how lack of awareness of psychiatric conditions prevents diagnosis. Even though this film is a “period drama” set in the 1960s, it feels accurate even today.
Lead Image credits: Red Chillies Entertainment, SPS Telefilms
