ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Rosie Perez

Inside the Rain: Prejudice and Mental Health

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‘Put some respect on my name!’ is the name of the game.

Inside the Rain starts with our main character, a college student named Benjamin Glass (Aaron Fisher). Glass is a student suffering from ADHD, OCD, Borderline personality and he is Bipolar. He wants to prove to everyone around him that he is smart (or smarter than what people give him credit for). When Glass goes to a party, he meets up with a girl and, after a nightly encounter, the police arrive at his door the next day and arrest him for something he didn’t commit. After his release from police custody, he is told by the college dean that, because of the schools 2 strike policy, they are going to kick him out of school. Glass comes up with a plan to win this misunderstanding case by making a film recreating the events of that night to prove his innocence.

However, he needs an actress to play the girl who wrongfully accused him and Glass hires local moonlight sex worker named Emma (Ellen Toland). Glass’ parents (Catherine Curtin and Paul Schulze) send their son to Doctor Holloway (Rosie Perez) on a consistent basis. Glass tells Holloway about his romantic interest in Emma and the movie he is filming to prove his innocence. Holloway feels that those decisions are not good for him and will only lead to him being hurt but Glass’s ambitious desire to prove himself causes him to ignore her advice. With some help from an anonymous donor, Glass now has the money to create his film and prove his innocence. 

As a romantic comedy, Inside The Rain does have its moments but really the movie is more than just a funny rom-com. Throughout the film, we follow Glass as he preps and shoots his film to recreate the incident. In doing so, Glass shows us his life and his world through his eyes, as well as every prejudice that he has faced along the way. I believe this movie touches on topics that society does not want to talk about or just don’t have enough information about. As I watched Inside The Rain, the first thing that came to my mind what that this movie is really about is the cultural prejudice facing people who are living with bipolar disorder. Aaron Fisher who plays Glass does an amazing job of authentically portraying the many disorders that his character is afflicted by. The accuracy from when Glass is taking his meds and seeing his behaviour to when he is off the meds is a thing of beauty. Glass’ father (Paul Schluze) thinks he is crazy making a film and should accept defeat, and that, if word gets out that his son is making a film, he will in the mental ward. The manner in which his father deals with his son in these situations is how a lot of people in society mishandle people who suffer from disorders by looking at them as thought they are mentally ill, need help or are limited to what they can do. This is why, throughout the movie, Glass tells his peers to not tell his parents he is making the film.

Furthermore, the movie also touches on the prejudices faced by sex workers face as well. For example, when we first meet Emma, some patrons from the strip club are trying to force her for a hookup after work until Glass stands up and defends her from the group. Also, when Emma goes to meet Glass’s parents for dinner, Glass whispers to her to not tell his parents that she is a moonlight sex worker. The movie really puts us in the shoes of these two characters and makes you want to root for their relationship and the fight to prove everyone wrong. 

Overall, Inside The Rain is a good movie that touches on the difficult topic of prejudice. Personally, I highly recommend this movie to movie lovers of unique Rom Coms. This would be a great movie for those who are interested in psychology and behaviour. As a psychology major myself, I really enjoyed Glass’s character development and seeing through the eyes of someone with bipolar disorder. With strong performances by a good cast and the topic this movie touches on, Inside the Rain proves to be very successful and worth a watch.

Inside the Rain is available on VOD now.

Self Isolation Film Festival: Fearless

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“We passed through death.”

I think Peter Weir’s 1993 film Fearless may be a very important film for the world to consider in 2021. That will be after we have come through the worst of the Corona Virus pandemic and the social and economic turmoil it is creating. What does it mean to be a survivor—to have gone through a time of fear, death, suffering? Will we see the world through the same eyes as before? Will we mourn all that was lost or celebrate the life ahead?

At the beginning of Fearless, Max Klein (Jeff Bridges) is walking through a cornfield carrying a baby with a small child at his side. We soon discover that an airplane has crashed in the field and he and a few others are survivors finding their way to the emergency personnel. Max’s response to the crash seems very bizarre. He leaves the scene and heads to Los Angeles to reunite with a high school sweetheart. When the airline tracks him down and offers to send him home to San Francisco by train, he opts to fly, showing no fear of another crash. The airline puts Dr. Bill Perlman (John Turturro), a psychologist who specializes in PTSD in the seat next to him. When Max arrives home to his family, he is somewhat distant and brutally honest.

Although Dr. Perlman can’t really connect with Max, he asks Max to visit another survivor, Carla Rodrigo (Rosie Perez), whose toddler son died in the crash. Carla is bedridden with shame and guilt (“very Catholic” according to Perlman). Carla and Max form a connection. Max tells his wife Laura (Isabella Rossellini) that he “feels an overwhelming love” for Carla. (Not the kind of thing Laura is happy to hear.) But Carla and Max are very different. Max is an atheist; Carla is very devout. Max feels energized and invulnerable; Carla is in deep depression. Max and Carla spend time together, but neither makes much progress with reentering the world in a healthy fashion. Max has made it a goal to save Carla. But who will save Max?

This is a film with a great deal of overtly religious image and language. One of the first things Max does after the crash is to eat strawberries, which he is allergic to. He calls it “forbidden fruit”. Max is referred to in the media as “The Good Samaritan” for the way he led some of the survivors out of the wreckage, calling them to “Follow me to the light”. Carla has a bumper sticker on her bedroom door that reads “Jesus es mi mejor amigo”. In a scene where Max and Carla go to church to pray for her son, we note that the crucifix in the chapel has a wound in the side very similar to one Max has. Even though Max espouses atheism, he frequently speaks to and challenges God. The idea of salvation pops up in various ways.

For me the key scene in Fearless as it relates to our current situation is as Carla and Max are in front of a store at Christmas time. He tells her “We’re safe because we died already.” He has her look at the others around them who don’t understand what it means to die in your mind. Then he tells her “We passed through death.” (Coincidentally, I watched this on Easter. These lines resonate very well with Easter themes.)

Is that perhaps what we are doing now—passing through a kind of death? Not just the rising toll of deaths from COVID-19, but also the disruption to education, and an economy that will certainly be seriously damaged, leading to increased unemployment, failed businesses, loss of retirement savings that will affect millions of people. What will 2021 hold for those of us who have passed through this time of trial? Will we be wracked by survivors’ guilt? Will we, like Max, think we have charmed lives that make us impervious to injury? Will we see ourselves as Max describes Carla and himself: ghosts? We will all face grief and loss in some way. Is an unrealistic outlook like Max’s any healthier than Carla’s retreat? I haven’t heard anyone say this yet, but I expect the next pandemic to hit the world could well be PTSD from all the things that we are currently living through.

At some point we will think everything has returned to normal (or some semblance of normal). It would be naïve to think that because we made it through this pandemic that we have not been affected. We are all wounded by this. We are all infected, if not with the virus, with emotional stress and fear. We need to begin now to pay attention to how we will respond to that time when we have made it out of the wreckage of COVID-19. And we will need to continue to care for one another long after we start returning to our lives.

Fearless is available for rent on Amazon Prime for $2.99.

6.20 Emancipating the BIRDS OF PREY

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After her debut in SUICIDE SQUAD, fan favourite Margot Robbie gets her time to shine brightly in BIRDS OF PREY (AND THE FANTABULOUS EMANCIPATION OF ONE HARLEY QUINN). After stepping out from the shadow of her ex—the Joker—Quinn quickly finds herself in the cross-hairs of every hitman in Gotham, especially maniacal crime boss Black Mask (Ewan Macgregor). However, Harley isn’t the only woman in Gotham who needs emancipation and she finds some unlikely allies in tough cop Rene Montoya, Black Canary and The Huntress. In a fantabulous episode, Mira Ibrahim joins me again to talk about the meaning of emancipation and pop culture’s portrayal of gender.

You can also stream the episode above on podomatic, Alexa (via Stitcher), Spotify or Soundcloud! Or, you can download the ep on Apple Podcasts or Google Play!

Want to continue the conversation at home?  Click the link below to download ‘Fishing for More’ — some small group questions for you to bring to those in your area.

6.20 Bird of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn)Download

Birds of Prey: Emancipation with an Edge

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‘Turns out I’m not the only dame in Gotham looking for emancipation.’

–Harley Quinn, Birds of Prey

After the middling returns on Justice League, DC has broken away from their perceived Marvel-envy with a wide variety of films, ranging from the underwater epic Aquaman, teen-frenzied Shazam! and the dark and brooding Joker. With Birds of Prey, they continue the trend of well-written solo pieces that focus on character as opposed to forcing the next Avengers-type film. While cross-overs are inevitable (Quinn has already been confirmed for the James Gunn’s Suicide Squad film), the new approach has allowed each film in their canon to have their own flavour. Thankfully, Birds of Preycontinues the trend as a fun and free-wheeling burst of color and energy that breathes fire when it needs to and, more importantly, continues to breathe life into DC’s film slate.

Directed by Cathy Yan (Dead Pigs), Birds of Prey (or the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) reintroduces us to the unpredictable Harley Quinn. Finally free from her relationship with the Joker, Quinn suddenly finds that she has a target on her back and she’s forced to go on the run from narcissistic crime boss Roman Sionis (Ewan Macgregor), his right-hand man, Victor Zsasz (Chris Messina), and every other thug in the city. But things soon begin to even out for Harley when she finds herself an unexpected ally with three lethal women – Huntress (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), Black Canary (Jurnee Smollett-Bell) and Renee Montoya (Rosie Perez).

Wild and unruly, Birds of Prey earns it’s ‘R-rating’ (though surprisingly less extreme than it could have been) and plays with fractured story-telling and breaking the ‘fourth wall’. (In fact, the film has so much freedom that it begs the question as to whether or not DC has found their answer to Deadpool.) For her second time in the role, Robbie seems even more comfortable as affable anti-heroine, Harley Quinn, as she bounds through the film with playful enthusiasm. (Incidentally, newcomers Perez, Winstead and Smollet-Bell also prove to be solid female counters to craziness.) What’s more, Yan’s desire to bathe the screen in colour helps Birds of Prey become a visual treat. Told entirely from Quinn’s perspective, the film uses every brightly lit neon possibility from glitter bombs to a Madonna-throwback sequence in an effort to bring the chaos of her mind to life. As a result, the film becomes an erratic but playful venture that doesn’t always stick the landing with its humour but offers enough quality performances and entertainment to deem the film a success.

While the film follows Quinn on her quest for survival, the subtext of the film focuses on Quinn’s journey to spiritual freedom from the men in her life, especially the Joker (who remains unseen in the film). In a distinct shift from her debut in Suicide Squad, Birds shows off Harley’s intelligence rather than focusing on her physical beauty. All but forgotten in her first film, the character does have doctorate in psychology and Birds allows her to make use of it, without losing her wild side.

What’s more, after ‘emancipating’ herself from her relationship with Mr. J, Quinn sends a message to the city that she’s finally a free agent. The problem is, however, that this action emboldens the other men of Gotham’s criminal underworld who were afraid to hurt her for fear of Joker’s wrath. With this in mind, the film quickly becomes a metaphor for breaking free from the abusiveness of male-dominance in a culture that ignores the value and intelligence of women. Though men comment on the softness of her skin or her pretty face, few take her seriously as a threat on her own. (Incidentally, Quinn’s journey parallels that of the other women in the film as well, each seeking to free themselves from under the thumb of their male oppressors.) As a result, Harley’s journey becomes less about finding safety but more about finding herself, and empowering others to do the same.

Enthusiastic and rowdy, Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) proves to be another successful entry into the suddenly energized DC canon of films. As the demented by intelligent Quinn, Robbie continues to create a character worth watching. Though the humour doesn’t always work, Birds of Prey is a visual treat with enough strong performances to suggest that his will become another viable franchise for the future. After all, if Quinn really isn’t ‘the only dame in Gotham looking for emancipation’, Robbie still has a lot of work to do.

Birds of Prey (and the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) is free to fly in theatres on Friday, February 7th, 2020.