21 Oct

Posted at 13:08h in Film by

Debra Granik’s Leave No Trace is a story about trauma and distrust. That might not be the most obvious thing in this compelling film about a Vietnam Vet and his 13-year-old daughter who live in hiding in a park forest outside Portland, Oregon. But for me, as a psychoanalyst, it is the film’s heart. Will (Ben Foster) has PTSD from a war we should never have fought. He’s witnessed killing. His wife died long ago. We can well imagine there is much more to the story of Will’s life. People have shattered his trust. We see the results. His daughter,...

27 Sep

Posted at 11:51h in Film by

Peter Zvi Malkin’s Holocaust trauma worked in his favor to capture Adolf Eichmann, Hitler’s Chief Executioner; Head of the SS Office of Jewish Affairs and the Architect of the Final Solution. At least that’s the Hollywood version of the story. It makes sense as PTSD goes. And, although Chris Weitz’ Operation Finale invented the dialogue between Malkin and Eichmann for dramatic purposes, it wouldn’t be too far fetched to believe that some of it might have been going on either in Malkin’s mind or in his unconscious. After all, wouldn’t it make sense that the personal nightmare and rage he...

13 Sep

Posted at 11:50h in Film by

It’s frightening how quickly freedom can disappear. We have to watch out for those complicated forces, in the outside world and living inside us, that want to deceive us if we aren’t aware. Cabaret is a powerful and disturbing illustration, plus a startling reminder, of the various ways these dangers lurk. Over Labor Day weekend, I saw a remarkable performance of Cabaret at the Celebration Theater at The Lex in Hollywood. Director Michael Matthews’ version of this well known and loved musical crosses all conceivable boundaries; anything goes. And, then, it doesn’t. If you’ve seen Cabaret, you know the play takes place...

03 Sep

Posted at 13:41h in Film by

Jon Chu’s Crazy Rich Asians is about crazy wealth. But it’s really about so much more. It’s about the clashes between old money and new; between privilege and disadvantage; between American born Asians and those calling Asia home; between following passion and giving into duty. Mostly it's about a boyfriend's mother's envy. And, at the film’s center we find this conflict between a traditional Singaporean mother and her son’s Asian American girlfriend. At an even deeper level, Crazy Rich Asians is really about two different parts of that mother battling against each other. The Girlfriend Rachel Chu (Constance Wu) is the youngest...

26 Aug

Posted at 16:54h in Film by

  *Spoiler Alert: Don’t Read Until You’ve Seen This Film* The Wife slowly and disturbingly reveals many things about Joan Castleman (Glenn Close) and her marriage to 1992 Nobel Prize Winner, Joe Castleman (Jonathan Pryce). She’s lived a lie. She’s allowed it. She’s become merely “the wife.” But, when Joe asks her, as she finally gains courage to leave him after almost 40 years: “Why did you marry me,” she has no idea. Why Joan married him is a good question. But, the more important question is why she’d sell her soul for love? That can only be answered by looking at the...

16 Aug

Posted at 11:22h in Film by

Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman is a brilliant, terrifying, and timely treatise on hate. The film tells Ron Stallworth’s true early 1970's story (played by John David Washington): a courageous, harrowing, but ultimately foiled effort to expose the KKK and its virulent racial hate. Fuel it’s fires and hate justifies violence. Then is now: 1970 is 2018. Hate doesn’t make us “fine” people. Hate is never “fine.” BlacKkKlansman takes hate seriously. Lee masterfully juxtaposes the haters and the hated to expose the insidiousness of hate. This is the film’s overarching intent. And, Lee succeeds. He recruits us to join in fighting hate's power. Certainly,...

02 Aug

Posted at 10:54h in Film by

Middle School definitely sucks for many kids. It sucked for Kayla Day (Elsie Fisher) in her excruciatingly awkward (but at the same time sweet and hopeful) journey from Middle School to High School in Bo Burnham’s film Eighth Grade. Maybe it sucked for you. We see the obvious reasons in vivid Technicolor: the insecurities, the struggles fitting in; the fears of rejection; the uncertainties about “who am I?” It doesn’t help that there are mean kids and bullies to contend with. Yet, this isn’t the whole story. Teenage self-doubts have not so obvious roots in earlier childhood history. Not so sure?...

26 Jul

Posted at 12:00h in Film by

Welcome, readers. Characters On the Couch and my blogging on film is back with Three Identical Strangers and a subject I'm passionate about: the lasting effects of separation trauma. I took an almost four-month hiatus to build out my new office at 435 N. Bedford Drive, Suite 406, Beverly Hills, CA 90210 – a lovely and peaceful new space for my much loved clinical work and writing. That wasn’t the only thing, though. Along with the demands of the office build out, I also needed time to write a chapter on Pedro Almodovar’s film, Broken Embraces, for an exciting new book. Pedro...

26 Jul

Posted at 11:48h in Film by

Tim Wardle’s documentary, Three Identical Strangers, is a timely and disturbing account of the trauma of early separation. As a psychoanalyst who specializes in separation trauma, I left the theater shaken and troubled. Children aren’t for using. They aren’t for self-serving studies, proving points or punishing parents (yes, Trump and your cronies, that’s you.) The scars are severe and they last a lifetime. We see those scars in Bobby, David, and especially Eddy. The triplet’s separation was deliberate. It didn’t have to happen. It happened 6 months after the triplets were born on July 12, 1961 to an unwed Jewish high...

01 Apr

Posted at 17:02h in Film by

Poor Phil Connors. He’s stuck repeating the same day over and over again. It’s been 25 years since Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day hit the theaters for the first time. Hopefully, none of you have spent that long living the same day. But, we do have a thing or two to learn from Pittsburg weatherman Phil Connors’ very, very bad rut; the rut of a closed down, negative, self-absorbed, glass half-empty (and, let’s add, very scared of love) state of mind. That is until Rita Hanson (Andie MacDowell) comes along and shakes him up a bit. What does it really take,...