Eternal Beauty

This is a good film. I was sort of misled by the trailer. I thought it was a comedy. It isn't. It definitely has some funny moments but it is a lot more than that. Having close experience with mental illness, I found this to be an excellent portrayal of schizophrenia. It was chilling and heart breaking but heartwarming at the same time.

A Sally Hawkins performance is always so enthralling. Her latest role, in Craig Roberts's dark comedy, sees her play Jane a woman living with paranoid schizophrenia. There's a stark sense of isolation here - scenes take place in rooms that are half-empty, but filled with long, hungry shadows.

It has light, funny moments. When Jane falls for Mike (David Thewlis), someone also chewed up and spat out by the mental health system, they become frolicking lovers in a French New Wave classic. However, the movie is never unfaithful to the psychological reality of its central character.

Eternal Beauty shows, we might not be able to conquer our demons, but we can try to live with them. This is a nuanced, evolved take on mental illness than most films are capable of.

Jane (Sally Hawkins) is struggling with her mental illness. Her family had put her in an institution after her breakdown from being left at the altar. She is presently back living with her family who are all dealing with her in their own ways. She begins a romance with Mike (David Thewlis) who has mental illness of his own.

The different tones clash somewhat. It's quirky and disturbing with a general melancholy over the whole affair. The quirky attempts at humor don't really work due to the sadness of it all. The kid getting knocked out is shocking. Through everything, there is the greatness of Sally Hawkins. She is the shining star above all else.

Greetings again from the darkness. There is an odd line early on in which the psychologist says, "Don't fight depression. Make friends with it." What makes this an odd line is that Jane is a paranoid schizophrenic, and depression doesn't seem to be a driving force in her life. Craig Roberts wrote and directed the film (his second feature as director). You might know Mr. Roberts as an actor. He played the lead in SUBMARINE (2010). His approach as a filmmaker is one that keeps the audience off-balance; in fact, we can simply state this one is weird.

Sally Hawkins (THE SHAPE OF WATER, 2017) plays Jane. She lives on her own thanks to medication. Her family is present, though not especially supportive. A flashback takes us to Jane's wedding day where a younger Jane is played by Morfyyd Clark (THE PERSONAL HISTORY OF DAVID COPPERFIELD, 2020). Jane is spurned on her wedding day by her husband-to-be, and it pushes her over the edge emotionally and mentally.

An early scene gives us a peek at current day Jane. She brings wrapped Christmas presents to her parents' house, and promptly hands over the receipts to each family member. She purchased her own gifts, acts surprised and grateful as she opens them, and expects her parents and sisters to repay her for the gifts. It's quite a scene.

We follow Jane through her days as she seems to drift in and out of awareness and reality. She periodically hears her phone ring, and by answering she hears the voice of her former fiancé. The red phones match the phone she was on during her last conversation with him on her wedding day. It's her most painful and visceral memory, and one that Jane can't seem to overcome.

Relationships between the parents and the sisters are quite something to behold. Penelope Wilton (THE BEST EXOTIC MARIGOLD HOTEL, 2011) is the mother prone to cruelty and confusion, whereas the father (Robert Pugh, MASTER AND COMMANDER) nearly fades into the wallpaper, though seems more empathetic. Jane's sisters Nicola and Alice are played by Billie Piper ("Penny Dreadful") and Alice Lowe (GET DUKED!, 2020). Nicola envies Jane's ability to collect free money (disability), while Alice is estranged from their mother, and claims her "normal" life is boring.

When Mike (David Thewlis from Charlie Kaufman's latest, I'M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS) enters the picture, it's like a jolt of electricity from touching the wrong wire. Mike is somehow stranger than Jane, yet they manage to connect. As an example of the film's odd dialogue, when Jane asks Mike how things are going, he responds, "Things were looking up for a few weeks, a couple years back." That's the type of exchange we deal with throughout, and it takes an inordinate amount of energy to process what we see and hear.

One shot from cinematographer Kit Fraser is a particular standout. It comes from inside a microwave, replete with rotisserie base and Jane's face peering through the glass. There are numerous moments we've not previously seen or heard in movies ... like the doctor clarifying if the patient is "fine or good". Ms. Hawkins delivers another strange, but affecting performance ... something she has mastered over the years. She always makes the character hers, and makes us care about her. An added bonus is hearing Ricky Nelson sing "I Will Follow You" ... slightly more soothing than David Thewlis' frantic electric guitar performance. It seems certain that filmmaker Roberts agrees that normal is boring, and he ensures his film and characters are not.

Based upon the trailer and the streaming service's short description, I dove into this flick expecting another charming and playfully dry independent production that contained much British Isles eccentricity, as I am very fond of such works. What this film soon emerged as is a knuckleball; the baseball pitch that (if thrown right) initially looks like it will be easy to catch but then starts darting, drifting and diving all around, making the pitch very challenging to track and catch. This is a heavy film, but that's a very good thing. Psychosis appears to be effectively captured - uncertainty about what is a delusion and what is reality as well as a strong non-linearity. This makes the film, like a knuckleball, challenging to track. This flick is a challenge that only a certain portion of the populace will want to undertake, but for those who do, it will provide much to ponder regarding psychoses and will linger in your stream of consciousness.

I am pleased that I encountered this work. Hopefully you will be, too.