Adele's mental health


I watched this movie as a young girl and then, it was unremarkable to me. As an adult, this movie speaks to me. In many instances, this is my mother. I must say that no one has addressed Adele's mental health. Clearly, she has a personality disorder (a combination of histrionic, narcissistic, and a bit of borderline). I've looked through the topics and it was briefly mentioned that she was unstable/crazy here and there, but not much else. The family should have intervened in Ann's life (I'm aware that I'm judging a fictional family and assuming what they should and shouldn't be doing) and attempted to help her. I guess the family felt powerless over Adele and Ann's basic needs were being met, so what could they have really done? It's just frustrating to watch Ann be so powerless.

But as a person who has experienced trauma from a mother with a personality disorder, it seems everyone just sweeps it under the rug. I feel for Ann so much.

reply

Well, not that fictional, actually. Mona Simpson was inspired by her own life to write that novel.
As for the family sweeping the whole thing under the rug, this is how life is... This movie has always spoken to me on so many levels, having lived my whole life with my single mother, who had some mental problems (God knows I love her so very much, but it wasn't always easy) and the whole family just swept it under the rug. I'm not pitying myself here, just telling it like it is. My family (her family), I think, knew there wasn't much they could do to help her out without turning her whole life upside down, not really knowing what the outcome would be if they ever did such a thing... I think Adele's family might've seen things that way as well.

reply

I don't think it's a combination of anything.

Adele isn't "eccentric"; she's almost a textbook untreated bipolar I. Even the "happy ending" of her agreeing to help Ann with college expenses is clearly the act of a woman in the grip of just another manic episode--one that's going to leave Ann in a dorm, with no $$ for tuition or anything else, and ending up begging on the streets of Providence.

The real truth is that if Adele's family, or Ann's school counselor or a school social worker had pursued Adele's 'eccentric' behavior down the path to a medical/mental health professional, as they should have done? Ann would have been in her grandmother or her stepfather's custody, instead of being held hostage to her mother's whims and schemes.

This movie makes me absolutely furious. No kid should ever have to be parented by someone so unstable, and this movie makes it look almost appealing!

reply