User Reviews

This is far more than the average television movie, that's for sure. If only they could all be as good then maybe they wouldn't be looked down on so much. This film touches upon a lot of soft spots with me, it's so powerful and moving in many different ways. Just hearing the excellent theme music alone is enough to move me deeply and get me into the dramatic spirit of it, every time. The music is very beautiful and has a haunting melancholy feel to it that greatly captures the themes of adversity and fear very well. Diana Ross was just fantastic, if I were ever lucky enough to meet her I'd tell her how much I loved her in this. She must have had to go to a very dark place to portray so well the pain, madness and anguish of someone with a fragmented mind who had lived with such an unimaginable disease for so long. She did a highly effective job with her appearance, making herself appear all ramshackle and hard-edged, with a pained and grim expression that she wears for the first half of the film. Her deviousness in the scene where she poisons her sister with her medication is chilling. Her slow return to normality and a new life over the coarse of the film is inspiring to see. It's all handled in such a raw, honest and not overly-dramatic way that you can't help falling into the story and sympathising with everyone involved. ::: A brilliant talent that I've seen with another film from the director, the equally excellent "God Bless the Child", is his ability to deftly juggle many smaller characters and not have the plot seem cluttered, and make them all seem like fully realised human beings and not forgettable bit parts. And that's a huge part of why I love this and why I believe it works so terrifically, all the characters have a strong, rich sense of chemistry. There are plenty of fine examples of acting talent on display. Gloria Foster(Oracle off Matrix) was wonderful as the long-suffering and weary mother. For whatever reason, this film is not on her list of credits, nor is she credited in it. RIP. Chasiti Hampton put in a great little performance as the mature-beyond-her-years daughter who fears that she will inherit her mother's condition. Lindsey Crouse, who a lot will probably recognise as the villainous Professor Walsh from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" puts in a strong turn as the straight-laced but compassionate shrink who patiently works Paulie back to mental health. I just love her in two scenes where she forces Paulie to face reality and drags her out of bed and into a cold shower, and another where she holds onto her until she calms down on a frightening trip on a busy subway train. Maura Tierney is really sweet and poignant in an early role as Paulie's friend and fellow schizophrenic sufferer Meg, who's fragile mental state gives way to suicidal despair in one harrowing scene. ::: There are numerous emotionally moving scenes and moments that can make me all misty about the eyes, chief among them is absolutely the heart-rending final scene, which is superbly done and astoundingly moving. The way she sees the damaged woman that could so easily have been her had she not have gotten the help she needed from so many devoted people. That scene does bring tears every time I see it because it really sums up and concludes everything so perfectly. It's quite a harsh film, but also hopeful if one is still happening to be finding the way out of their own darkness... And I appreciate it very much when hope in a film is not some great, golden sunrise moment, but something small and quaint. more realistic-and to me far more precious and meaningful for it. She's finally free, and in a good place where she's hopefully overcome her nightmare for good, but she looks back at that Shadow of a human being with a heavy heart, because she's been there too.

Diana Ross earned a Golden Globe nomination for her heart-wrenching portrayal of Paulie Cooper, a young medical student battling paranoid schizophrenia. Her illness caused her to be institutionalised 43 times, and had a devastating effect on her family, financially as well as emotionally. A sister who was jealous of the attention she got yet sympathetic to her illness, a mother struggling to provide for her sick daughter yet aware of the friction her attention-giving was causing between the siblings and Paulie's own daughter, who struggled to deal with loving her mother yet being scared of her. After trying several medications over many years, she finally finds one that is effective. She tries to return to her medical studies but is thwarted at every turn, being told how her past exam successes no longer counted because of the 17 years that had passed, and how her diagnosis meant she wouldn't be able to cope with the stress of medical study, the long hours and wouldn't be able to afford it anyway.

When she meets the homeless mentally-disturbed black woman outside the grocery store, and hears the worker tell her to move away from the shop front, she first offers her money and then food, which the woman is too scared to take until no-one is around her. Paulie finally sees just how she used to appear to other people. She knows in that moment just how far she's come, and what life will be like if she relapses. At that point, she cries, not only for the woman but for herself.

This is incredible acting from Diana. She appears with the most minimal of make-up from beginning to end, in ordinary clothes, in effect as an ordinary person would. She's not afraid to scream, cry, fight, she's not concerned with her image except in relation to portraying Paulie honestly. You get to see her mental struggle in all its rawness. There's no glossing over the worst parts of her illness - you see her boyfriend leave when he can't accept her past, her screaming to fight and block out the auditory hallucinations, her increasing distance and public estrangement from some of her family, you see her having to accept her daughter telling her that she loves her but doesn't want to live with her because "it's too hard". But she's not the only star here. The cast has been well-selected, is very believable, and the whole production comes across as a family struggling within themselves as individuals as well as with their relationship with Paulie.

This is a very effective portrayal of how mental illness can affect a family in ways they hadn't expected, and it's to its credit that it didn't sugar-coat the hell that mental illness can be. The film is based on a true story, and is as true to mental illness as it could be.