Characters On The Couch

How a psychologist thinks about your favorite Film & TV characters.

greta gerwig

LADY BIRD
Mothers & Daughters
How History Plays Its Part
In Problems Loving and Letting Go

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and Lady Bird begins with a Joan Didion quote splashed across the screen: “Anyone who talks about California hedonism has never spent Christmas in Sacramento.” Christmas is mostly for children or, at least, the child part of us. And, few come through childhood unscathed. Greta Gerwig’s charming, brilliantly written, funny, and psychologically real film has …

Read moreLADY BIRD
Mothers & Daughters
How History Plays Its Part
In Problems Loving and Letting Go

MISTRESS AMERICA
Going Backward To Go Forward
That’s Psychoanalysis

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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 …

Read moreMISTRESS AMERICA
Going Backward To Go Forward
That’s Psychoanalysis