The Humor?


I'm sure this isn't a new concept, but did anyone have a hard time viewing humor in watching a film about mental illness? The movie starts off telling of her smell and from there it spirals downward. I felt the entire time as if the film tried to be funny in regards to a heartbreaking issue and then when it decided it wanted to be poignant, it failed miserably. The final 40 minutes are excruciatingly dull and the film falls off the rails. Yes, I get the fact that Maggie Smith is a wonderful actress and I'm not saying she was bad, but the film is. It takes a very sad story and mocks it. I had a hard time liking that.

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Some people need to lighten up. There was some funny stuff. So what?

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I take it you're American? American and British humour differ greatly but you might enjoy the original story more. I loved the film but, as usual, the written word is vastly superior.

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My point wasn't the brand or style of humor. I've seen hundreds, probably thousands of British comedies and I completely get the humor. My point is the subject matter, being consistently detailed with "humor," didn't sit well with me. For me, with this wonderful actress, a drama with comedic elements might have been more appropriate.

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it's A lan bennet's style of writing. old age, illness, and death are subjects he writes about quite a lot, and there is always some humour in what he writes. he needed to keep a sense of humour, having miss shepherd camped outside his house for fifteen years.

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I'm american and loved the humor, not sure exactly why you think one wouldn't.

"Without getting into my job, yes I am a writer" - AlexDuran

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Because most of United States is inhabited by dolts & dullards

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I didn't necessarily see this as a movie about 'mental illness' nor did I find any of it 'excruciatingly dull'. Safe to say, it just wasn't your cup of tea.
There's something poignant and heartbreaking in everyone's life regardless of their situation or station in life--yes even the Queen's. Conversely, there's also a bit of humor to be found in even the bleakest of circumstances. I can't imagine going through one's life without the ability to recognize this. I assure you, no one in the theater of good faith and conscience was laughing "at" her or her situation.
I didn't even see the character as 'mentally ill' but rather (in a non-pathological manner)--self deluded. I saw her as someone who had gone overboard with guilt--punishing and therefore denying themselves (tit-for-tat) a life. The sad irony was that she needn't have done that.

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I think the sad irony of which you speak is what troubles me. It says more about society's ability to accept the "weird lady in the van" than to rectify it. I've also read the book was much more sympathetic, with the humor used only to show the parallels between the two, despite the different situation. One thing that is becoming a major issue in filmmaking is using mental illness, disabilities, even traumatic experiences as tools for humor or in many cases simply a springboard into a story, where the problem doesn't apply. I have not read it, so I can't say for sure what was used for laughs from the big screen perspective and what was simply my takeaway. I do know the film was reviewed very differently in the US than it was in the UK, with the humor being front and center among US critics, while viewed as a diversion in the UK. Maybe it simply didn't translate for me, which I find odd, being I watch more foreign films than I do American.

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You brought up an extremely good point, 'about society's ability to accept the "weird lady in the van" than to rectify it'. This was a very troubling aspect of the story for me, that nobody really went further out of their way to help the poor woman aside from bringing her a dish or two now-n-then or allowing her to park in their drive. If anyone had bothered to delve a bit deeper into her life, they might have been able to do her some REAL and lasting good. That this story is "mostly" true is very saddening.
Adoring Maggie Smith as I do, I think the way she portrayed the character, by giving her an indomitable spirit, allowed me to see the humor in an otherwise desperate situation. She gave the woman dignity where few if none would find any.
I think the film did showcase society's reluctance to get involved and how we've become accustomed and even somewhat prideful of our reasons not to "care". The film also showed the assumptions that welfare workers often make concerning those "associated" or otherwise in proximity of persons in need.

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Perhaps because I've lived with or close by to elderly people for much of my life, I didn't see "MM" as mentally ill, but merely a little senile. What made me uncomfortable on her behalf, so to speak, were all the comments about her use/non-use of a lavatory, and related talk about plastic bags, stains, odors, etc. It seemed quite excessive and degrading, as though each remark chipped away at her dignity.

This is probably because I'm American. *One* such reference may have felt excessive! I think that on the whole we're much more uptight about such topics than Brits. I didn't "get" the humor. However, right at the beginning Margaret talks about how "clean" she was as a girl, "even in parts that don't show" or something to this effect, and the scene seemed as though it were meant to be humorous, so I can see that it's a cultural difference that just is what it is!

EDIT: I feel I should explain why I wrote that M. seemed "merely" senile to me, as I don't want it to seem like a flippant, clueless remark. I've unfortunately had family members and close friends with severe psychological problems; people who've had ECT and been "held" in locked-down psych wards I had to be very "thoroughly" searched to enter. I was attacked twice by other patients. I got a call at work one morning from my cousin, who lives 250 miles from me. Her teenaged daughter was in a treatment facility in the city where I live, and minutes from where I was working. She'd woken up that AM to see her roommate's body hanging in the closet. I was allowed in the room as next-of-kin; the dr's insisted on it. The poor girl's view of the roommate had been quickly blocked, but mine wasn't as I came in and saw the police and coroner conducting their investigation.

I'll spare everyone any more sad stories! I just wanted to let readers know why M.'s condition didn't strike me as being as serious as it probably was, and as it no doubt appeared to other viewers.

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I think it's unfair to say that nobody tried to help Miss Shepherd. Alan Bennett allowed her to live rent free on his property for 15 years...the neighbours were often giving food and one neighbour bought her a new van. The social services lady came round often as well.

The question the film deals with is more, how should society treat someone who is not ill enough to be forced into an institution (what we call committed or sectioned) but who lives in a way that causes problems for her neighbours and herself?

A similar real life case was that of the late Mr Edmund Trebus of TV's Life of Grime programme. Mr Trebus was a hoarder whose property overflowed with junk and rats and the programme showed how the council and neighbours tried to deal with this. It's a shame a similar film hasn't been made about his life.

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About mental illness? It's about ageing, which can be similar, but I wouldn't call it a mental illness per se.

I don't find the humour mocks her at all. I find, as I did when taking care of my mother on occasion before she finally died at age 92 after 8 years of dementia, that the caregiver has to give a lot - just as AB who let her stay in his driveway had to give quite a lot - but then crazy things happen due to differences in perspective. Laughing at the absurdity that the young men who come at night are communists rather than homosexuals is not laughing at her. It's laughing at life. Same with her pride at claiming to be a busy woman, her rudeness at ordering people about, like "shut the door" after xmas gifts are given. It's an old lady of very slender means trying to survive... and all the absurdity of life. I don't see it being about mental illness. Why apply that label? Why medicalize and pathologize everything. You're not her clinician.

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You clearly didn't watch the film very carefully and painfully unaware that this was indeed based, very closely, on a true story. The writer of the novel and the screenplay was the writer in the movie. The lady was a real person, who had suffered a mental breakdown, depicted in the film, when she refused acceptance as a nun and not allowed to play piano, for which she was known for before her attempt at being a nun.

Also acceptance of dementia is not the same as care and as someone who knows fully the care of those suffering, there is very little laughter to be found in it. To be imprisoned in one's own mind is not only a form of mental illness, but a form of torture. While I realize there is always humor in eccentricity, it's lost on this viewer, when it uses real symptoms to get a laugh. I am not her clinician, but I did however watch the movie, read the novel and read about the true story of the mentally ill woman.

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Well, I did watch the film, but I didn't read the book. A mental breakdown doesn't make her mentally ill generally. What was her mental illness, then, since it wasn't named in the film. Apart from her crazy religious beliefs of course. I put a lot of her actions down to that, but it's rather rampant in the world and never labelled a mental illness. I'm an atheist, so it's not for me to label it either. I see a lot of kooky behaviour under the religious label, though.

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