La la Land

Why am I constantly wondering? Why can't I just observe?

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Location: Singapore, Singapore

Looking to learn, to explore and to imagine possibilities......

Sunday, July 17, 2005

Prozac nation:some thoughts

This is a movie based on a true story and novel by Elizabeth Wurtzel. It’s the story about a young girl who wins a journalism scholarship to Harvard and her descent into the depths of depression. This is not a review, just some observations on some pertinent issues the movie highlights.

The film’s story, the characters, and acting are realistic enough, while not deviating from stereotypes of broken families, self-absorbed father, over indulgent mother and adolescent girl struggling with self-identity. Her therapist seems to be the only cool voice of sanity (?) who prescribes Prozac to give the protagonist “space to breathe.” Lizzie protests, saying that this cannot be a solution, if her sanity depends on a pill. Does that not make her doctor a dealer and the pharmacist a pick up spot?

Lizzie’s issues are to do with love, rejection, excess empathy, inability to deal with pain which are all human emotions, that everyone has felt in some degree at some point in time. Why does her life then spiral out of control, leading her to seek the highs of sex and X (ecstasy), while in college? There are obvious real difficulties to do with her life here, none of which become the focus of the story. The onus on the individual to handle her failings is complete, even to final moment of choosing between suicide and Prozac.
Her epiphany lies in realizing she is a broken human being, and a pill is her only path to freedom to live.

There are social questions, subtlety raised, even as the story relies on a personal account. The book has been criticized as self-pitying description of the horrors of depression. The reason I find this criticism interesting is a teacher of “directing actors” mentioned today in a class that audiences do not sympathize with self-pitying individuals, as they feel the pitying is over done. Apparently this has basis in some philosophy that those who are deep in despair and are aware of it need no empathy. Empathy should be limited to those who are not aware of their own weaknesses. The film highlights this point too.

If you can’t fix it yourself, get help who will legally give you a pill. Lizzie seems to echo this viewpoint repeatedly in the film. Its an interesting view on what modern society can offer those who find life’s burdens a little too heavy to bear.

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