Prozac Nation (2003)

Too much of everything

Pretty Good

best movie i've ever seen.

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

It's nothing more than an apology do PROZAC; clearly a menchandising. I had severe depression and this of the so called anti-depressives never did any good for me, they don't help. AAt the 80ths a massive commercial campign in all medias tried people to believe it was a miracle, but it was only a big-pharma move to make money.About the character is mostly annoying than sick.

I heard of it from the very start & took it 4documentary 4ages. Like M.Moore or Adam Curtis at least. Leftie, raving, snarling. Conspiracy, insane but juicy. My stupidest mistake. Haven't watched it though, just insinuated. Pity, that, now. Dumb-dumb. - Thought it 2b like Oswald Spengler, Alvin Toffler, Francis Fukuyama rolled in one. No, no it's not. A "feature film" w\so called "actors". A teenage-girl suffering from monthlies. A "true life story" that, by George. Oh, great... - I did not read the book. Possibly it's better than the movie, like Jeanette Walls' "Glass Castle" would be. - I can't unsee what I've seen now. And it is dead. An overpampered Harvard freshman has a......(can I add another 3 dots?) writer's block & is depressed by that. Who cares! Big deal! Have you smelled the intestines of the dead on your hands, my precious baby?

Prozac Nation for those who don't know was a collection of memoirs by Elizabeth Wurtzel about her time being depressed. I have never read the book but I did want to see this movie because I like both Christina Ricci and Emily Perkins as actresses. So I think that it is pretty good but it does have a lot of problems.The plot is that when Elizabeth goes to Harvard she starts to live the wild life while trying to put together articles, some even for Rolling Stone Magazine. Soon life gradually spins out of control, the more time that passes the faster her life goes out of control. Soon she becomes depressed and mean-spirited to other people (sometimes out of complete nowhere).The acting of this movie is actually pretty good. I have already said I like Christina Ricci and Emily Perkins as actresses but it's everyone who puts in stellar performances. This is easily the best element of the film.Another thing I liked was the ending... That might make me sound as if I didn't like the movie but I really liked the ending. It doesn't give itself Hollywood clichés such as some guardian angel figure telling Elizabeth how to snap out of her depression... It even flat out says that.If I am going to go into complaints it would have to be the way Elizabeth goes through some of her depression. Some of the times when she becomes mean spirited, sometimes it's justified a little bit to make me say "Yes, even though I don't agree with what she's doing I can at least understand it" while others she almost snaps out of nowhere.So I really liked this movie. There were some problems with the movie (The biggest being how Elizabeth acts sometimes) but it actually is a pretty solid film. If you are a fan of Christina Ricci or if you like seeing films about depression then I think this film does bring some good acting and none of this guardian angel stuff Hollywood throws at you then I'd say pick this one up.

Well. There is saying "There is nothing more efficient to break the confidence than Jewish mother". I quite didn't understand that until I have meet some families with Jewish ancestry and very, very pathological relationships between mothers and daughters. Mothers are typically very demanding, cold to daughters but full of self pity and perform emotional scenes to their daughters full of blame and incredibly poisonous mix of love and hate. The daughters feel mix of hate and guilt to mothers, they feel they are not "up to the expected standards". They would like to set themselves free, but they cannot, because they are tied to their family very strongly. Every guy who tried to get between the mother and daughter in this fight felt he lives in hell house. Everyone had to leave this hell house sooner (the boyfriend) or later (the father). This is portrayed very realistically in the movie. The pathology is here and what is worse it propagates from one generation to the next generation. Unfortunately no pill is solution to this sort of pathology. It removes the pain but not the wound itself.On the other hand the movie fails completely as the description of depression. Depression is not hysterical run to destruction and self destruction as shown in the movie. Depression sucks all the energy from people and leaves them optically calm, until something bad happens (suicide attempt). I know about several suicides of young people, usually "out of the blue", because these people were so depressed that they were not able to communicate their depression and seemed "only tired or ill" to the others. This was very sad because help from psychiatrist could actually save their lives. Not a single case was similar to the movie, usually even parents did not see what was coming, not even their friends.So, this is not movie about depression and "problem than haunts US". It is movie about inability to reflect herself or to get any insight into her situation (the part about "swallowing the lover" is especially pathological and shows total narcissism and selfish personality). There is no movement to good, no progress, only pills that replace other drugs and alcohol to hide the problem. This is description of utter failure to resolve or achieve anything, she is as damaged at the end as she was in the beginning. The idea that someone could try to find something of use for his life from this movie is actually very frightening. Very, very bad example, please see this as only warning how to NOT proceed on therapy!