>>REVIEW
PROZAC NATION
Miramax, 2005
Directed by Erik Skjoldbjærg
Before being chosen by Christina Ricci to direct her, Erik Skjoldbjærg had made only one feature — the original Insomnia (Norway, 1997), a flawless, intelligent and original film with depression as one of its main themes. Prozac Nation was duly shot in 2000-2001, with little incident, but apart from a fairly well-received showing at the Toronto International Film Festival that year, it never saw theatrical release. At first it was put on hold, then forced through a series of test screenings and re-edits. The final version only comes out now, direct to video, at precisely 90 minutes, which in itself is always a bad sign, redolent of contractual obligation and compromise.
All this cannot be explained without reference to the original book’s author, Elizabeth Wurtzel, which is not always entirely to her credit. Her bestselling book Prozac Nation, read like a diary of the hipster manic-depressive and made the young writer an instant literary celebrity. Wurtzel becomes the heroine of the film, and the story centres around her personal life and experiences.
The first question, for instance, is whether one can fault a film for its clichéd depiction of depression when it is based on the book that made a cliché of this condition, and whose protagonist from start to finish (and beyond, judging by her subsequent literary output) cannot see or engage with reality except through a series of clichés.
Published in 1994, when Wurtzel was in her late 20s, Prozac Nation was a credible addition to teenage confessional literature, and it touched upon a timely and important issue – the role of prescribed drugs in American culture.
It’s hard to call the book courageously honest, as her subsequent output confirms that she is oblivious to how others might interpret her unusual combination of total self-obsession with a complete lack of self-awareness.
This is best illustrated by the book’s most frequently quoted line – "Insanity is knowing that what you're doing is completely idiotic, but still, somehow, you just can't stop it."
Well, that’s how many of us would describe our day jobs, and a lucky few would describe love. Mostly, though, doing idiotic things just means that you’re an idiot.
What Wurtzel refers to (extreme sexual promiscuity, substance abuse and minor self-mutilation) are not symptoms of any real illness but of the failure to deal constructively with the abnormalities caused by real illnesses, yet that distinction never gets made. Instead, we are given the false choice between being an untreated fuck-up (Wurtzel prior to Prozac) or a medicated "success" (at the end of the film, Wurtzel on Prozac graduates from Harvard).
This false dichotomy may have something to do with the film’s delayed appearance – by 2001 this happy ending had unravelled very publicly (as told in More, Now, Again, Wurtzel’s chronicle of addictions subsequent to Prozac), and I couldn’t help seeing this dishonest absence (of realistic closure, of full disclosure) as the story’s salient feature, even as it was being told.
But, to get back to the original question, does all that make this a bad film? I think it very much depends on the context in which you view it.
The Harvard thing, for instance, which takes pride of place in the film and all of EW’s published biographies –at one level, you could see it as boasting, or as a lazy trope for overcoming adversity.
But then you remember other famous graduates of that institution, even if they were only elected to office after the book was published, and (even if you haven’t read Karabel on Ivy League admissions) you won’t be too surprised by Wurtzel’s later admission that, as an English Major, she couldn’t remember in which century the Brontes lived.
Similarly, her stance on authenticity – in the climax of the film, she challenges her doctor about the appropriateness of a drug cure that alters her sense of self, but she had previously evinced no such qualms about falling in love under the influence. You could say that this somewhat undermines the dramatic impact of that scene, or that it’s just a fair depiction of her generation’s double standards.
On the whole, I prefer the latter, and believe the film does full justice to the book. |
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