How Eter­nal Beau­ty chal­lenges men­tal health representation

When was the last time you saw a film that didn’t sen­sa­tion­alise schiz­o­phre­nia or cap­i­talise on the top­i­cal­i­ty of men­tal health? All too often it seems as though the issue’s cur­ren­cy is the only rea­son the indus­try has any inter­est in it: look at the rumoured $50m salary offered to Joaquin Phoenix to reprise his Oscar-win­ning per­for­mance in Jok­er, orig­i­nal­ly intend­ed as a stand­alone sto­ry. The less said about the con­tent of such films the bet­ter. Even the fram­ing of Phoenix’s char­ac­ter, phys­i­cal­ly dis­tanced by long lens­es with lots of neg­a­tive space or shal­low focus back­grounds, attempts to dis­suade the view­er from find­ing any empa­thy for his situation.

Con­verse­ly, Craig Roberts’ sec­ond direc­to­r­i­al fea­ture Eter­nal Beau­ty uses the mechan­ics of cin­e­ma to place the audi­ence with­in the emo­tion­al expe­ri­ence of its pro­tag­o­nist, Jane (Sal­ly Hawkins), who is liv­ing with schiz­o­phre­nia. The char­ac­ter is inspired by one of Roberts’ own rel­a­tives, ​“the real Calami­ty Jane” (to whom the film is ded­i­cat­ed), and was exten­sive­ly researched with the Uni­ver­si­ty of Cambridge’s Pro­fes­sor Paul Fletch­er serv­ing as a consultant.

Roberts fol­lows Jane through­out the film: the only scenes Hawkins doesn’t appear in are flash­backs in which Jane is played by Morfy­dd Clark. Her vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty is laid bare but nev­er exploit­ed for cheap sym­pa­thy. In fact, one of the most strik­ing aspects of Jane’s per­son­al­i­ty is her off­beat sense of humour, which appeared to polarise the audi­ence at the screen­ing I attend­ed. It’s only through spend­ing more time with Jane that we realise that the intent is not to laugh at her but to come to under­stand her perspective.

This is some­thing Eter­nal Beau­ty exceeds in doing. Roberts shot the film on 35mm, telling those in atten­dance at my screen­ing that he felt the most appro­pri­ate way of show­ing some­one come off the chem­i­cal reac­tion of med­ica­tion was through anoth­er kind of chem­i­cal reac­tion. The effect of this goes beyond the warmth of cel­lu­loid tex­ture. Like Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love, the film phys­i­cal­ly embod­ies Jane’s jour­ney and takes us along with it. The track­ing shots and over­lap­ping voic­es of Anderson’s film are re-pur­posed to immerse us in Jane’s experience.

Rather than ques­tion­ing her deci­sions in the way that Ander­son does when Adam Sandler’s Bar­ry Egan unleash­es his anger in sud­den out­bursts, Roberts allows us to per­ceive the world exact­ly as Jane does. Sound­bites drift in and out of the audio mix. A red ring­ing phone becomes a cru­cial motif, a nat­ur­al coun­ter­point to Jane’s blue aes­thet­ic, with a threat­en­ing voice issu­ing seem­ing­ly kind words. When Jane is briefly sec­tioned in the sec­ond half, Roberts jump cuts into her sit­u­a­tion with all the fran­tic­ness of her cur­rent emo­tion­al state.

See­ing and indeed expe­ri­enc­ing some­one com­ing to terms with such a con­di­tion so vis­cer­al­ly is per­haps why this film has had such a pro­found impact on me. I wasn’t diag­nosed with autism until I was already in pri­ma­ry school. By then I knew I would always love film and yet, grow­ing up autis­tic and learn­ing to cope with anx­i­ety and depres­sion as an adult, it hasn’t felt com­plete­ly rec­i­p­ro­cal. I rarely see neu­ro­di­verse tal­ent or sto­ries con­cern­ing either autism or men­tal health that feel emo­tion­al­ly authen­tic or cin­e­mat­i­cal­ly ambi­tious. As much as I hold out hope that the indus­try will even­tu­al­ly reflect expe­ri­ences to which myself and oth­ers can more specif­i­cal­ly iden­ti­fy, the like­li­hood of such things hap­pen­ing is slim.

This is what is so refresh­ing about Eter­nal Beau­ty. It deals with per­son­al trau­mas spe­cif­ic to its char­ac­ter, as visu­alised through effec­tive use of metaphor­i­cal imagery (the phone motif receives its own sat­is­fy­ing pay-off), with­out schiz­o­phre­nia itself being the main focal point. Sim­ply put, we per­ceive the sto­ry through Jane’s eyes. Roberts is more con­cerned with recast­ing the idea of the con­di­tion not as a weak­ness but as a part of a dai­ly exis­tence. I’ve seen many films evince this sen­ti­ment through the medi­at­ing fac­tor of a neu­rotyp­i­cal pro­tag­o­nist. By hav­ing Jane remain an active force in the sto­ry, Roberts’ sin­cer­i­ty appears all the more genuine.

Eter­nal Beau­ty is released 2 Octo­ber. Read the LWLies review.