I saw this movie about 4 months ago and in one of my psych classes we can do a presentation on a movie and I woudl like to do it on this movie, i am going to rent it again... possibly buy it, but i wasnt sure if they even say in the movie what is wrong with him. I remember him being very detached and not very emotional, anyone have anything that could help me out here?
I think there's a chance he is just severely depressed. He gets very emotional when Becky breaks up with him and constantly talks about sadness so I think it's safe to say he isn't void of emotion. He just has an extremely negative view of the world. But I'm not a professional so I can't be sure!
---------------------------------
Dexter: Takes Life. Seriously.
i'm studying psychology currently and i'd say major depression is all that can be inferred. he is very emotional but has trouble showing it, which i think is the biggest indicator. his detachment and the fact that he cut his hand just to see what it felt like are more indicators. he also talks about being overwhelmed by feeling everyone's sadness, to the point he can't sleep.
shareI posted on your other thread, but I've just watched the movie again, so I'll post here too. Depression is not Leland's problem, and assuming so sells the movie short. I think the film is a study in duality. The Jungian theory that everyone has a light and dark side, and one cannot exist without the other. There's another thread here that questions Leland's maturity level, saying that his part was written poorly for a 16 yr old. I disagree. I think Leland is extremely intuitive, for example his first observation that Pearl was having an affair. He seems so in tune with the feelings of everyone and everything around him that he's no longer able to seperate which feelings are his. This another Jungian philosophy, specifically that there is a collective unconscious that we are all a part of, but some are more in tune with than others. The reason I don't think of Leland as being too mature is because this early maturity is very common in children like Leland. If you want more information, look up "Indigo Children." The term "Indigo Child" usually refers to psychic children, and they're often said to have an old soul.
Anyway, that's my two cents. You can blame it on too many Psych classes. Hope it helps.
I like moenkopi46's answer to "what is wrong with Leland". I think the whole idea of the "United States" speaks to all the events, people, etc. that made Leland who he is, and what he did. It reminded me of the "Catcher in The Rye". I think that Leland's loss of innocence (thanks to all the other people in his life- especially the woman that was mothering to him, turning it into something sexual), is more than he can handle, and like Holden, he goes over the edge. Because he's too sensitive, too innocent, too childlike???? Maybe all of these..... and he loses himself when he can't seperate what are his feelings, and what are other's feelings. He merges- "unites"- all the parts of himself & others, the good, the bad, and this innocent child kills an even more innocent child (???). Yet he kills out of his goodness, to stop what he sees as the other kid's pain.
love this movie!
I found the Indigo Children information rather scarey. The 10 attributes or characteristics is a combination of every behavior/emotional disorder we deal with in schools. Well, at least AD/HD, Oppositional Disorder & the latest craze of Autism. I think perhaps the "Indigo Children" are the offspring of parents that show/teach no discipline. And I mean discipline as in boundaries, limits, and self management. Discipline is part of love, and neccesary for children to feel safe, so that they may grow. I am happy that Leland doesn't fit this category.
shareI also don't think Leland falls into this category (Indigo Children), however, it doesn't seem like his dad was around to teach any boundaries, limits or self management. There is definitely something wrong with him in the way he detaches himself from the world around him only to become a narrator/observer with little to no emotion.
shareMaybe he has a schizoid personality. The characteristics of schizoid personality disorder fit Leland. The emotional detachment, pretty much just staying neutral, not desiring to be around alot of other people. He doesn't really need anyone else because of the lack of desire to form close relationships.
What a g'wan yawdie?
When I first saw it, I thought at some point they would just come out and say that he had a form of autism. He blacked out and doesn't remember anything about that day with the retarded kid and alluded to the fact that black outs had happened before--"so bad it's like they never happen at all". And while he's childish, he's also very introverted and a deep thinker. He feels emotions on a much deeper level than other people yet chooses to block it out. He also has certain savant type abilities.
I suppose it's anyone's guess but I thought it was a definite form of autism.
That's what I thought as well, possibly Asperger's syndrome.
shareI certainly thought it was autism too juxtapose70, he has a lack of showing his emotions but he can describe them perfectly.
sharehe isnt schizoid or psychopathic. his father isnt to blame either.
He just lost his innocense.
He begins as a highly intellectual and analytical person. He always was that...probably has a high iq. Though his father was a bastard, he still was rather innocent. The sexual interaction with mrs calron or whatever her name was is not the thing that made him loose his innocense. (in fact it probably saved him from further damage.) He lost his innoscense when he saw Mrs. C again for the 2nd time.
You see when he had his innoscense, everything was right in the world. The world was good and everything was okay. But seeing the light or fire leave Mrs. C's eyes after the divorce was like a wake up call. Similarily seen when children begin to understand the concept that they will die. A certain goodness leaves them. Thats what happend to leland. When he saw the fire out of Mrs. Cs eyes, it was his own reality wake up call.
Now being the intelligent and analytical person he is... he still analyizes people but ever since the 2nd visit to NYC when he lost his innocense, now all he analyzis is the sadness in people. He analyzed pearl and saw that he was a cheater rather than seeing that he was a pretty down to earth cool teacher. He analyzed ryan and saw his desperate acts at having a normal life and his overwhelming sadness and depression when he realized he never would have a normal life.
And he is not emotionless...rather he senses all these sad emotions and bottles them up inside. He is actually very emotional. You can see it when he is happy or sad or even angry. He is just so used to keeping it hidden.
Just reading your post after watching the movie. The detachment in some is a safety response to protect themselves and others. When your decision making process is compromised no action is the best answer in a society that demands it yesterday. Why pretend you can when reality is proving you can't. I don't say give up, but I do say know your boundaries. Be happy when you make good things happen, and when overwhelmed, take a step back and ask for help.
she loved poetry and romance, but she hit the glass ceiling at birth
Indigo Children aren't necessarily those whose parents are just looking for a reason to justify their "bad" behavioral traits. I've always taken the term to mean something akin to an "old soul", in that these children are intensely intuitive and can quickly understand the emotions of the adult world around them, like a four year old understanding the concept of nervousness.
share"He seems so in tune with the feelings of everyone and everything around him that he's no longer able to seperate which feelings are his."
This is just wrong. Pearl said his girlfriend wasn't there with him and Leland smelled his perfume, idiot. Leland is just a very analytical, clever person. Stop being a psychology freak. He is basically just depressed and so depressed that he starts questioning everything he knows.
How could I forget about you? You're the only person I know.
maybe there isnt anything wrong with him.
shareDid you totally *beep* miss the point of the movie!? Nothing's wrong with him! THIS IS LIFE!
shareJust whip out the good 'ol DSM IV's then, should be something in there :P
shareI also think there's nothing wrong with him, but I don't know any psychology stuff . To me, whether Leland is suffering from any sickness isn't the point of the movie, so speculation of that is not quite necessary. He's not depressed, he is not demented. He is just overwhelmed by his own compassion for Ryan and being 16 himself, not knowing if there's any way out for Ryan and his only way to help end Ryan's misery is to kill him. His being detached most of the time makes a lot of sense to me, he said he had to keep those emotions out of him (probably in order to stay sane). The moment he lets his emotions took over, he couldn't stand it, he couldn't function and he committed murder.
At the end when Leland said he is really sorry. Well, I don't quite know what he meant, or rather, what's the filmmaker trying to say. Killing is wrong, no doubt, but what about the ethic of mercy killing. The action itself is very wrong, but his intention isn't. I think he is sorry for his action, but I also wonder if he is also sorry for letting the boy down, that he had promised Ryan that everything is going to be fine, but at the end Leland is the one that took everything away from Ryan.
I rather think that if there's nothing wrong with you, you don't kill an innocent kid because you can't handle your emotions..
Im sorta wondering why he had the knife with him anyway, or if he planned to kill Ryan.
[deleted]
hah! i'll drink to that :)
And I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
I think Leland wanted to be removed from a world that he felt powerless to change. And if you're not going to commit suicide, what better way to be removed from society, removed from any responsibility, and having control over other people's destiny's and your own taken away than by being sent to jail for life.
Leland saw himself in the retarded kid... as if he was on the outside looking in. Killing that kid was in a strange way, an act of murdering himself. But it wasnt because he hated himself, rather he felt like the world wasnt such a nice place to be in. He felt that there wasnt much to miss by leaving it in any case. To Leland, the human condition was one of suffering with only fleeting moments of happiness strewn in. Maybe he thought he was doing the kid a favor.
I dont think Leland had autism or aspergers for one simple reason; he had a tremendous capacity to empathize with other people. I think Leland projected a lot of his own sorrows onto other people, but in the end, I'm not sure any of them ever felt as sad and alone as he ever did.
All that said, I dont think the film makers intended for us to ask "What is wrong with Leland?" I think they want us to ask, "What is wrong with us?" They went to great lengths to point out that these so called "mistakes" we claim to make are nothing of the kind. You make a mistake when you turn left instead of right when trying to find an address. You make a mistake when you yell at the dog for peeing on the floor when in fact it was the cat. You dont mistakenly cheat on your girlfriend or mistakenly shoot yourself up with heroine or mistakenly hold up a clerk at gunpoint or mistakenly neglect your kid for 10 years.
And at the risk of stating the obvious, more than any legitimate medical case, Leland is a construct of the filmakers who serves as a prism through which we are asked to examine ourselves. "Why?" is the big question, but its not "why did Leland kill the retarded kid?" When you throw out the pitiful excuses like "We're only human" and "Everyone makes mistakes" the question still lingers and there are no easy answers.
And if you by chance come to the conclusion that "this is who we are" then it might make fill you with sadness and dispair as well.
and I just thought I'd add...
Why is it that when a person comes along who may very well see / understand the world better than most, be labeled as a mentally ill or developmentally deficient or otherwise unwell person?
Leland broke a law which is a societal construct. That doesnt mean there's anything wrong with him. Leland doesnt see the world the way other people see it. That doesnt mean there is anything wrong with him. If Leland is shaped through his life experience to believe certain things, it doesnt mean that just because it's out of the norm, that it's "abnormal" in any clinical sense.
Ok, he killed somebody that's true. But killing is not abnormal behavior. I think this is why psychiatry is a bit of a sham. It diagnosis people in the context of societal norms but as a species we are distinguished by many many different characteristics be they physical or mental. Clearly there are certain mental disorders such as schitzophrenia and multiple personality disorder and others where people experience perceptions of reality that cannot be rationalized, but this is not the case for many other so-called mental disorders.
There seems to me to be too narrow a view of what "normality" is. Normality should not be synonymous with the ability to conform (falling within a small range of "accepted" behavior). Because to do that is to declare war on being different.
Hey,box-11, if I killed you and your family right now just because I felt like it, you're saying that wouldn't be wrong (and also that there is nothing wrong with me)? You see, not everything is relative. Some things are pretty absolute, like the fact that you don't kill innocent people... even if they do LOOK sad.
Of course it may even be easy for you to lie (or honestly believe, if you're such an idiot that you convinced yourself of your own *beep* idea) that it wouldn't be wrong, but there is still right and wrong.
Leland even said it himself. "I think I made a mistake." He knew what he was doing was wrong; he knew what he did was wrong. I don't see how there can possibly NOT be something wrong with him. Obviously he felt the "societal construct" was an appropriate one in this case, yet he still broke it.
"Normality should not be synonymous with the ability to conform (falling within a small range of "accepted" behavior)."
Did I mention I think you're a complete tool? You most likely are really into your english class, or were, wherever you live. Chances are you got really into a philosopher, like Emerson, and completely misunderstood some of their key points about life. I'll use Emerson's famous quote "To be great is to be misunderstood." Sounds like he did a pretty great job, since you misunderstood him.
He didn't mean killing someone was great just because it was different. In fact, Emerson was obviously anti-violence in any way. The ideas of being different only last for so long and when you get into the realm of killing, they completely vanish.
"conforming to the standard or the common type" is the actual definition of normality, in case you want to fight Webster over it. Man, I bet the employees at Webster would love to hear your insight and would probably end up changing the definition, dumbass.
That brings another out another question: If normality shouldn't be the "ability to conform," what should it be? The ability to not conform? And how about we change "you" to "we" and "I" to "you all," just to test out the whole "let's *beep* up the old definitions" idea.
We are a tool that has been chiseled by our own misinterpretations from philosophers that we hold so high. You all believe that we need to get a grip on our undeserving confidence so that some day we may be have half a brain.
How could I forget about you? You're the only person I know.
Apart from "Killing is not abnormal behaviour" (since it happens, yet most people don't do it) I couldn't have put what you said any better myself!
And I'll wear it like bones, like skin,
it'll be the goddamned
dress they bury me in.
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
[deleted]
i agree...a lot of people have complained about the sub-plots of the other characters but they're not really sub-plots...they are essential, they are the story along with leland...
sharewhether this movie is or good or not is personal opinion i loved it cose i think its very true and the things he talks about is the way people are. would you say people are pretty much good most of the time?? no i wouldnt id say people are people and anything you have that they want they will take and do what they have to do to get it.. its a sad reality but it is the world..
kudos to this movie.
Hypnotron, you cannot be *beep* serious?!! You think that an action such as murder has a relative morality, just because it's outside the norm? What the hell have you been smokin', dude? Murder is WRONG, because it's robbing a human being of their inherent right to exist, whether they're developmentally challenged or not! Now, I admit, a lot of people do go through the world like robots, thoughtless and perhaps blind, but that's their choice, and deciding that just because the world's a messed-up place, someone has to die so you can feel you've "saved" them from it is warped in the extreme. Leland is a very sick individual.
shareBZZZZT...
Emotional response to rational argument:
You lose...
Looks like I picked the wrong day to quit shooting smack...share
Just for the sake of argument, and I'm not saying i agree or disagree but there are some philosophers (past and present) who would argue that choice is an illusion and that everything boils down to causality. It's fashionable to label some of these thinkers as "crazy" since the concept of the existence of "choice" just _feels_ like the only proper view. But as far as I know, you cannot prove that choice is real. It's a matter of faith.
But assuming there is no such thing as choice, then obviously there can be no right or wrong.
But lets not talk any more about that. Let's talk about morality. Most people believe that morality is absolute and they believe this again because it _feels_ right. We do know that not everyone shares the same prescript of morality. Some people believe that capitalism is moral. Some people believe that it is not. Some people believe that natural law equates to morality and thus if you're stronger than somebody else (in any fashion) than it is immoral NOT to take from them what you will. In other words they believe that it is moral for the strong to dominate the weak and to have compassion is in fact immoral. Capitalism is regulated precisely because (in the views of many) it would otherwise be an unfair and oppressive economic system. Some say "so what?!" and believe that pure laissez faire capitalism is supreme because it best reflects human nature (i.e. is natural law).
I'm not trying to make any point except to say that when you say "murder is WRONG" you're just interjecting opinion. That's not to suggest I think murder is right because I don't. According to my own moral compass, taking another person's life FOR GAIN or NON SELF DEFENSIVE purposes is wrong because I believe in the GOLDEN RULE and I in turn want others to treat me according to that rule I believe in. But we should remember that murder is a legal term. Without laws or social contracts there is no such thing as murder. That takes us back to questions of morality which I already talked about which in turn takes us full circle to the notion of (ab)normality.
There are two types of normality. There is statistical normality and there is clinical normality. The former in no way shape or form suggests that there is anything objectively "wrong" about a person who falls out of the statistical norm for any behavior or mental perception. It simply says that Behavior X or Perspective X are the most broadly held and anything outside of those represents varying degrees of statistical deviation.
Extremely BEAUTIFUL WOMEN and men are by this definition abnormal. RIGHT WING Republicans and LEFT WING DEMOCRATS are all abnormal to some degree because generally they are off center.
Clinical normality on the other hand defines abnormality IN THE CONTEXT of SOCIETY (specifically western society!). If you're an extremely shy person, then by clinical definitions you are suffering from a "disorder." But in reality, what we're talking about is a classification describing how well a person fits into the society in question. And by "fit in" we're predominantly talking about how well this person can succeed economically and to a lesser degree socially in that society. If you're super rich and wierd you're "eccentric." If you're poor and equally wierd you're "bat-sh*T crazy."
I don't want to belabor the point but one must understand and never forget that we live in a world where being different is about the most undesirable thing there is. It's all really just methods of control. I believe there are plenty of people who have bona-fide genetic defects or traits (e.g. retardation, downs syndrome, schizophrenia) that would make them unable to fit in with ANY society including cave man society, but the overwhelming majority of people we want to diagnose as having some disorder are simply being classified with respect to a narrow definition of normality that is constructed to foster control, encourage conformity and certain so-called "normal" behaviors.
p.s. I happen to think that George W Bush is a freaking sociopath who is a danger to everybody. But GWB is apparently NORMAL. See what i mean?
this is why i love imdb, you can learn so much...excellent post...
shareI think that The Hypnotron pretty much nailed it there.
Let's say you were dropped onto planet earth with no history that told you what was right and wrong (Read "The Wasp Factory" for an amazing story of what could happen), and had to function purely on what you learned by observing what causes people pain or joy, then wouldn't you be as detached as Leland seems to be?
But he isn't really detached. He's just trying to make sense of the world as he sees it, not as laid down by law. If you follow this line of thought then all he is trying to do is to make the right decisions to make his and others lives better.
And he suffers the consequences. As do we all.
If the opposite of Love is indifference, what's the opposite of Hate?
I know it's been 5 years (nearly to the day) and you could probably care less about this post now, but I just wanted to thank you and tell you that I have never agreed more with what someone has posted on this website. Everything you said makes so much sense, and it really helped me look at this film a lot closer. So cheers. Spot on.
shareAbsolutely beautiful post, TheHypnottron! Takes me back to my college philosophy and sociology discussions.
p.s. I happen to think that George W Bush is a freaking sociopath who is a danger to everybody. But GWB is apparently NORMAL. See what i mean?
absolutely nothing is wrong with him.
he just sees things clearer than most.
it's what the whole movie was about.