The True Believer *SPOILERS*
I started to cry toward the end of this movie. I feared where it was headed: the damnable no-man's land between uncritical religiosity and uncritical pseudoscientism. Pick one and cling to it but find yourself equally damned. Uncritical anything is a one-way ticket into hell, no matter how you define it.
As someone who was born and raised in an insular, conservative and restrictive religious tradition, I could see more than a bit of myself in Michaela, with the exception of what seemed to be an epileptic disorder. I've never been epileptic, but if that had been a factor in my case I shudder to think of it. I was so confused at that time in my life, so angry, felt so betrayed by everything I'd been told to count upon that if I'd had additional psychiatric and medical issues on top of it as Michaela did: I can't imagine that I'd have felt any differently, interpreted my symptoms any differently, especially so young and with so little exposure to the wider world.
If I'd had the added antagonism and rage stemming from a cold, distant mother and the closeness yet confusion of an enmeshed father (talk about having to deal with mom's jealousy as daddy's girl: yikes!!) and it's like the perfect storm: a familial disaster just waiting to happen.
One of my favorite scenes: watching Michaela dancing shortly after meeting Stefan. I think it was less about Stefan than it was about finding her own identity, discovering the freedom of a path that had the most meaning for her, hoping for deliverance from her epilepsy, as well as finding a sense of personal purpose and direction. Some might call it a purpose and direction toward 'God'; she wanted to be a teacher. Maybe the nurturance of her natural gifts would have resulted in her being an exceptional one.
The scene where Michaela runs out of the Christmas Eve service and the distress this causes for parents and priest....I couldn't help thinking, "Well, Dad's willingness to persevere is shot...he doesn't know what to do. He was on her side before, but now he doesn't know how to defend her independence, let got of the worry about her epilepsy, frame that whole mess in the sights of his religious beliefs, stay married to her mother and whatever else at the same time."
Poor Michaela. She's at the end of her mental tether, at the same time that she's stopped taking the medication to control her seizures. This is not going to end well. In her own way, she's rejecting a dominating authority in the only way she knows how but by doing so, and not having something to replace it with, she's unwittingly feeding into its worst, most uneducated interpretations of such an act: rejecting God, God rejecting her, not being 'allowed' to pray, etc.
She can't find the words nor even the internal understanding to say to her parents and the priests: *beep* you! I don't know what I believe right now, but just because I'm confused doesn't necessarily mean that I reject God, nor does it mean that God rejects me. Just because I'm confused doesn't mean I'm crazy. Just because I have seizures or hear voices, that doesn't mean I'm possessed or have permanently lost touch with reality. Most importantly, I'm an adult and I will make my own choices from now on, with or without your help!"
As much as I might be heartened to think that Michaela wouldn't be subject to 'exorcism' in the religious sense today, there would still be the issue of medicating her psychiatric issues versus actually treating her. Pseudoscience's answer to exorcism, perhaps.
It was so blindingly clear to me that Michaela was in a crisis of identity, independence, attachment, comfort, trust and belonging that she literally had no idea where to turn. The devil you know is better than the one you don't? Clearly, that turned out badly when Stefan took her home in the end. Her friend's desperate last-ditch attempt to get her out of the confusing, insular hell she was in broke my heart.
Not that I think Michaela would have necessarily been safer in a contemporary psychiatric hospital: nevermind that the era shown in the movie was firmly committed to medicating people in order to produce acceptably manageable behavior rather than doing any real, time-consuming work in providing therapeutic relief to the person suffering. It's not as if anything that much different is happening today.
I'm not anti-God or anti-faith, but I am against simplistic and uncritical religiosity. I'm not anti-psychiatry or anti-medication, but I am against medicating first and asking questions (or offering other therapeutic means) later. And no, I'm not a scientologist. There are damn good reasons we humans cope in the myriad of ways we do, from shyness to mania to outright psychotic breaks: take a look at our systems (and lack thereof) of social support and the often crushing weight of expectations and demands placed upon us, whether from family or society - often both. Compassion is sorely lacking, judgment is rampant, and support is wildly erratic or at best left up to the luck of the draw (ie, who you are born to). Some beat the odds, perhaps due to the additional luck of temperament and chance, but too many struggle just to avoid being crushed under the wheel.
It's no wonder that some of us spit soup in our mothers' faces, scream at our fathers that we're not allowed to pray any more, and hear unwelcome voices in our heads. If we're stuck in systems that do little more than erode us from birth and we don't have robust and varied means of alternative support as we grow, what other choices do we have?
RIP Michaela (Annalise).