The Year Between

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Writer/director/actress Alex Heller

setting the scene

The director on the set

Alex Heller at a Northwestern symposium

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE YEAR BETWEEN        C+                                                                                               USA  (94 mi)  2022  d: Alex Heller

An uncompromising film inspired by true events, covering a wide range of mental health issues, this is an occasionally funny, painfully honest, yet more often wretchedly miserable look at the devastating effects of bipolar disorder, an illness rarely getting quality screen time in movies, given an autobiographical touch of authenticity from a director who faced her own mental health struggles, diagnosed with the same illness at the age of 19, Heller is an acknowledged bipolar comic, writer, film director, and actress from Chicago who graduated from Northwestern University in 2015.  Thrown into a world of trying different medicines, where it can be a long arduous journey to find the right combination, there’s no one cure that works for all, yet finding the right medicine is more of a trial and error effort to see what provides the best approach for each individual, a hellish and humiliating process with debilitating side effects, and a mammoth struggle just to get through each day without alienating everyone around you.  This is a film about being stuck in your own head, paralyzed by things going terribly wrong, where you’re helpless to stop the devastating effects this has not only on your life, but everyone around you who are literally consumed by your aberrant behavior.  The film follows Clemence (director Alex Heller) in her sophomore year at Western Illinois State University having a breakdown, where she’s a terrifying presence, suddenly displaying endless bouts of bullying and erratic behavior, blaming everyone else for what’s spinning completely out of control until her roommate fears for her life, where her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) is forced to pick her up and drive her back home to the Chicago suburbs (exposing the strip malls of Glen Ellyn), clearing out space in their basement, as her father (Steve Buscemi) has taken over her former bedroom as an office.  Her younger siblings, high school senior Carlin (Emily Robinson) and younger brother Neil (Wyatt Oleff) are none too pleased about her return, finding her a real pain in the butt, as she literally takes over everyone’s lives with her overwhelming negativity, unruly behavior, and incessant need for constant attention.  The relief the family experiences when she is gone suggests Clemence may have been abrasive and insensitive even before the diagnosis, attributable to what she fears is a “bad personality,” where her true self is buried underneath layers of obnoxious unpleasantness.

Suddenly thrust into an unwelcome treatment plan she has no control over, she has to contend with her white-haired, grandmotherly psychotherapist Dr. Lismoen (Waltrudis Buck, a former nanny for Senator Jacob Javits’ children who happens to hold a Master’s Degree in creative writing at Hunter College), whose calm, rational sensibility is completely at odds with the irrational, sarcastic outbursts of Clemence, who finds it a terrifying fit, denouncing her at every turn, addressing her only as “that German woman,” where their sessions together feel like mortal combat.  But the good doctor holds her own, where her acute insight into bipolar behavioral symptoms even catches Clemence by surprise, as she’s precisely describing what she’s going through, oscillating between mania and depression, but that doesn’t make it any easier, as her mood swings just feel uncontrollable, also referred to a psychiatrist, Dr. Madzen (Jon Hudson Odom), who offers no insight whatsoever and is little more than a sounding board.  Very few films zero in on such a loathsome character, where there’s no real filter on what she says and does, appearing overly confrontation and brazenly narcissistic, as it’s an energy drain just being around her.  The family dysfunction is at the center of the picture, as everyone feels threatened by her unexpected return, finding their lives in constant turmoil, where just getting through high school is so traumatic anyway, but her resentful brother and sister feel like she’s ruining their lives by overshadowing their everyday reality with neverending hysterical drama.  Her well-meaning mother accompanies her daughter to all her therapy sessions, has her best interests at heart, and tries to be straight with her, sharing her daughter’s directness and biting sarcasm, but grows wearily impatient, as the two are continually at odds with each other, while Clemence trusts no one, least of all herself.  Her mild-manner and non-judgmental father seems to be the only one who doesn’t fly off the handle, never seeing his daughter any differently, even after these bizarre episodes, taking everything in stride, where he appears to be a bit delusional about the realities of any of his kid’s lives, putting a positive spin on everything while also keeping a safe distance.   

Finding it difficult to maintain any sense of equilibrium, weathering the ill-effects of different medicines, making the same bad decisions again and again, Clemence loses hope, never really feeling good about herself, growing more desperate, running into a high school boy that she completely forgot, rediscovering his existence on Facebook, Ashik (Rajeev Jacob), who, as it turns out, also lives in the basement of his parent’s home.  But this interaction sends her off the rails, finding sex to be so difficult, so she takes heavy doses of Adderall and alcohol, which doesn’t exactly mix with the medicine she’s already taking, sending her spiraling off her treatment plan entirely, turning her into something of a zombie.  Dr. Lismoen reminds her that she must stay vigilant about her daily regimen of medicine, as this illness never goes away, but medicine can neutralize the worst of the mood swings, allowing her to live a manageable existence.  Feeling guilty about the burden she’s become for everyone else, and the exorbitant medical cost on her family, she tries to get a job to help out, which initially seems admirable but impossible, but she sticks it out and ends up working part-time at a local thrift store under the direction of the more even-keeled assistant manager Beth (Kyanna Simone).  This interaction produces surprising results, as Beth is someone she actually ends up respecting, reminding Clemence that if she screws up, “nobody’s taking me in to live in their basement.”  It all comes to a head when Beth invites her to a party, and all the principle characters somehow come together in an unexpected blur of humor mixed with anguish and turmoil, an exasperating social experiment that seems to freak everyone out except Clemence, who’s having the time of her life, finally interacting with an albeit oddball social mix that surprisingly offers just a glimmer of hope.  What’s different about this film is the comic edge provided, taking some of the sting out of the personal horrors, yet the entire film feels like an immersion into a belligerent therapy session, where a thoroughly dislikable patient simply takes over the entire session, becoming a toxic influence, and while there are eye-opening personal revelations, it’s also wrenchingly difficult having to deal with this amount of chaos and destruction, where some may believe the illumination is not worth the cringeworthy aspect of the experience.        

Christine

CHRISTINE               B-                   

Great Britain  USA  (115 mi)  2016  d:  Antonio Campos     Official Facebook

Well, if ever you needed a reason “not” to live in Sarasota, Florida, this would be it, set in the vacuousness of a distant time, with occasional references to the Watergate era, where the insipidness of the period musical selections may make you want to pull out your hair instead of reminisce.  From the director of the eye-raising AFTERSCHOOL (2008), one of the few films that actually understands the YouTube generation and the prominent influence of the Internet in the lives of high school kids, this is an entirely different exploration of dysfunction at work, largely a character study of a single real-life individual, Christine Chubbuck (Rebecca Hall), a Sarasota news reporter who pulled out a gun and shot herself during a live news broadcast in 1974, perhaps the only known example of a suicide captured live on the air.  Rather than react in horror, the film attempts to put the pieces together before it happened, set against the other tragedies that were occurring in the post-Vietnam, Watergate era, where the nation was inundated by a series of catastrophic events, including the continual journalistic exposure of lies and a governmental cover-up from the office of the Presidency, where day by day, new revelations seemed to unravel existing beliefs about the role of government in our lives, eventually leading to a Presidential resignation and an eventual pardon for all crimes committed while in office.  While this only plays out as an annoying backdrop, Chubbuck’s suicide may seem like a small indicator of larger societal ills, yet most likely she was suffering from undiagnosed and untreated mental health issues, which is a reflection of our current government posture to close mental health hospitals state by state in cost cutting measures and then deny the significance of mental health issues until “after” the explosions, as there’s been no remedies from the Columbine-like mass shootings that continue to plague our nation, University of Texas, 1966 (18 killings), Luby’s Cafeteria, 1991 (23 killed), Columbine High School, 1999 (13 killed), Virginia Tech University, 2007 (32 killed), Sandy Hook elementary school, 2012 (27 killed), Pulse Nightclub, 2016 (49 killed), for example, as there are more mass shootings in America than any other country, where each event stands out as a stark American tragedy.  Yet what, if anything, is being done about it?  While this film itself doesn’t ask any of these questions, it doesn’t exist in a vacuum either, where to this day, most urban news reports lead their nightly broadcasts with police blotter information, including the number of deaths that reportedly occurred.  Knowing the outcome before the film begins has a chilling overall effect, much like Gus van Sant’s ELEPHANT (2003), where a sense of dread kicks in as the moment approaches.  

While the centerpiece of the film is one of the most shocking moments in television history, the film is comprised of small, absurdly amusing moments mixed with pathos in the harrowing life of Christine Lubbock leading up to that moment, where she has a history of depression, is socially awkward, remains a virgin at age 29, and never really fits in anywhere, yet has this ambitious streak where she has delusions of grandeur, seen in front of cameras doing an imaginary interview with a non-existent President Richard Nixon, who is instead just an empty chair, yet the human interest stories that she’s assigned to are lighthearted puff pieces about ordinary people who raise chickens or grow strawberries.  Her smothering relationship living with her mother (J. Smith-Cameron) is reminiscent of Ruppert Pupkin in Scorsese’s scathing satire KING OF COMEDY (1982), as both are achingly lonely, creating fantasy worlds that help them cope with the psychological schisms in their fractured view of the world around them, where Christine develops a comedy act between two hand sock puppets that she performs to help educate disabled children, which is easily the most outrageously original aspect of the film, as she recreates moral lessons that she performs alone or in front of preschoolers, offering us insight into her psychological mindset, like a secret passageway into her subconscious that is sensitive and highly aware of how people should treat one another.  “How do you know it’s a stranger?” one puppet asks another.  “What if you know them, but you don’t really know them?”  All right, it can get a bit creepy.  Her lesson on how it’s OK to just be quiet with one another is poignant and especially shrewd.  While she jots down notes of her personal objectives, like a must do list in the form of a diary, where she’s repeatedly telling herself the things she needs to do to be more effective, yet she’s continually discouraged on the job, butting heads and remaining at odds with her boss Michael (Tracy Letts), who implements the “If it bleeds, it leads” philosophy, as he wants to spice up the broadcasts due to such horrible ratings that he fears the station will be shut down, as the owner of the affiliate, Bob Anderson (John Cullum), announces he intends to visit the station.  Despite her insistence on barging into Michael’s office whenever she feels like it, irrespective if he’s in the middle of a meeting, this practice doesn’t win her any favors, as Michael has little patience for her antics, and instead just finds her rude and overbearing.  “You know what your problem is, Chubbuck?  You’re a feminist.  You think that the way to get ahead is by talking louder than the other guy.  That’s the whole movement in a nutshell.”

Adapted from an extensive Washington Post article by Sally Quinn in 1974, Sally Quinn's article about Chubbuck for the Washington Post, we learn that George (Michael C. Hall), the news anchor that Christine secretly fantasizes about in the film was actually a stockbroker who came into the studio to read stock reports on the air.  While the director Antonio Campos has a history of realistically portraying the psychologically disturbed, his previous works both male portraits, this film has an awkward feel all around, especially from a male director, who puts the female protagonist in a fish bowl and allows her to sink or swim, feeling exploitive from start to finish, as if it’s showcasing her worst instincts, where in some cases we are laughing at her, as her behavior deviates to the weird and bizarre, never really getting inside her head, showing little sympathy, where viewers are never comfortable in her presence, as the film never reveals much insight into why she is this way, or what happened in the past, only that she feels uncomfortable in her own skin.  Prone to occasional rants, which scream of self-centered middle class entitlement, where she’s not getting what she thinks she deserves, from her job, her mother, existing relationships, never really feeling loved or appreciated, though objectively speaking, her mother is her biggest supporter and always seems to have her best interests at heart, while her job offers her plenty of opportunities, but she fails to take advantage of them, never establishing her own niche that singles her work out as significant.  Her camera operator Jean (Maria Dizzia), probably her best friend, is extremely sympathetic and tries to help her at work, but Christine negates and minimizes the influence of others, thinking exclusively of herself.  Part of the reason she’s not very good doing human interest stories is that she expresses so little human interest, continually thinking she’s better than everybody else.  What really sets her off is the discovery that news anchor George is being promoted, where he’ll be working in a bigger market, something she felt was rightfully hers, where she’s extremely conflicted by the idea that someone other than herself might be more qualified.  In her world that’s simply not possible, feeling there must be some kind of mistake, demanding a recount, of sorts, thinking they must have overlooked what she means to the station.  Veering into a downward trajectory, as if to show them just how important she is, she asks for an opportunity to work at the anchor desk, where she devises this plan to shoot herself on the air, complete with typewritten script notes which she utters verbatim, “In keeping with Channel 40’s policy of bringing you the latest in blood and guts, and in living color, you are going to see another first:  attempted suicide.”  While it’s thought that only a few hundred people saw what occurred, the footage quickly disappeared, never to be seen again, but the story made the rounds of all the nightly news reports, and some think this was the origin of Paddy Chayefsky’s brilliant satire Network (1976), conceived in a post-Watergate decade that cynically invented happy news broadcasts to boost ratings, while similarly producing a cheerful newsroom comedy sitcom like The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970 – 77), which eerily closes the film with a kind of illusory reality.