Characters on the Couch
Film & Television Blog
by Dr. Sandra Cohen
MISTRESS AMERICA
Going Backward To Go Forward
That’s Psychoanalysis
Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s kooky and touching new film, Mistress America, gives us Brooke Cardenas (Greta Gerwig), a 30-year-old autodidact, full of life and ideas, but stuck. She can’t get her life off the ground. Brooke needs help, but help makes her feel small: “There’s nothing I don’t know about myself. That’s why I can’t…
JAKE GYLLENHAAL
DEMOLITION
Ways Not to Grieve
I just watched the trailer for Jake Gyllenhaal’s upcoming 2016 film, Demolition, about the aftermath of his character, Davis’s, sudden loss of his wife, Julia. Loss can take many forms. As the trailer shows, Davis unravels. He can’t pull himself together. His father-in-law tries to encourage him to rebuild his life. To do so, he…
THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA
A Girl Who Can’t Grieve
Her Dead Father
Loss can be a dead place. If you move forward, you’ll know the person you love is gone. As I sat spellbound in the Majestic Theater watching the brilliant performances of James Barbour as Phantom and Julia Udine as Christine Daad, I knew that The Phantom Of The Opera isn’t only the story of a…
