5 Great Mad Movies About Madness

How our favourite flicks treat mental illness…

Mar 27th 2009 By Sam Ashurst

The Movie: 12 Monkeys (1996)

The Madness: Catatonic Schizophrenia

WTF? Physically immobile or excessively mobile while in the thrall of massive delusional hallucinations, according to the Mayo Clinic.

Also seen in: Being John Malkovich (1999); The Cell (2000); Dreamcatcher (2003); Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004); Franklyn (2008).

Think you’re off fighting crime in a hyper-realistic mega-metropolis filled with religious zealots with freaky eyes? Either you’re stuck in this year’s Franklyn, or most likely, you’re wandering around convinced you’re there while acting extremely paranoid.

Movies love this mind malady because they can conjure imaginary tour de force worlds and have a mentalist running around with a gun at the same time – what more could anyone ask? And if they’re really bad, they might put J-Lo in their bonce. Ouch!

But we’ve picked Twelve Monkeys, because it was so brilliantly confusing, it made us feel a little bit catatonic the first time we saw it. In a good way, mind.

How realistic is it? Depends on how you read it, if you see Bruce Willis as a simple paranoiac, then very. If you think it’s about a time traveler, not so much

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- KerrAvon
  
  Mar 27th 2009, 13:34
  
  Interesting article though you missed out bi-polar or manic depression as it also known but that seems to be something that a lot of actors suffer from rather than a subject that a lot of films are made about, please feel free to correct me if I'm wrong (Richard Dreyfuss, Carrie Fisher are bi-polar for example)
  
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- SheNoir
  
  Mar 27th 2009, 14:01
  
  The main character in Girl, Interrupted was diagnosed with Borderline Personality disorder, so not exactly insane but is capable of some pretty insane things like overdoses and self-harm, impulsivity. Similar characters you would diagnose with BPD traits would be Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. She left Joel but immediately got into another relationship once things took a turn for the worst, possibly pre-empting abandonment. Had he left her, the chances of her attempting suicide would be pretty high. BPD sufferers often come across as vibrant people with shifting changes in mood and personality. To others it may seem normal but to the person with BPD it can feel like nobody understands them and feels completely isolated.
  
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