Photo by Joey Kuhn
I wanted to like this movie. I really wanted to like this movie. But it left me feeling cold.
New in theaters, Touched With Fire is an indie film starring Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby that tells the story of two bipolar poets in love.
The acting isn’t great, and it isn’t horrible. It’s the script that’s the problem.
Carla (Holmes) is a published poet who voluntarily checks into a mental hospital after her mom convinces her she needs help. There she meets Marco (Kirby), a spoken-word poet who goes by the name “Luna” due to his obsession with the moon.
Toward the beginning of the film, we see Marco’s apartment teeming with stacks and stacks of open books all over the floor. Decidedly manic. His father arrives one day and notes the chaos. Order in chaos is exactly what I used to do when I was manic — at home and at the office.
Marco ends up in a mental hospital after getting arrested for climbing a building, spray-painting a blue circle around himself, and meditating under the moon.
At the mental health facility, Carla and Marco bond over a mutual insomnia. With late-night encounters, they become manic together, making art, hallucinating Van Gogh’s The Starry Night on the walls, believing they are from a different planet, and plotting out a map of the stars to get back home. This kind of grandiose thinking is textbook manic, like believing you’re on a reality TV show with cameras following you watching your every move.
Maybe it’s just that my experience with bipolar is different — I’ve never been in a mental hospital — but I had trouble with the credibility of the script, despite the fact that director Paul Dalio is bipolar himself. Sure, the characters talk fast when they’re manic, and their oddball behavior is somewhat entertaining, but it didn’t feel genuine. It wasn’t as frenzied as mania is in real life. They needed to kick it up a notch. I felt as if I were watching a heavy metal band perform, with the volume dialed all the way down to a whisper.
When they decide to run away from New York, Carla and Marco are chased by police on the highway. A manic Marco drives the car into a river, noting that “nature will save us.”
Photo by Joey Kuhn
But the main issue with the film is that Carla and Marco are manic all the time. And that’s just unrealistic. You will crash (become depressive), especially when you’re not taking your meds — which the two stop doing, as shown in one scene where they dump their pills into a New York City fountain. Yes, it’s sexier to show two bipolar individuals running amok, but, except for one very brief scene of Marco at his dad’s house, we never see them depressed.
So — ironically — the film lacks balance. It essentially portrays just one side of bipolar disorder.
Then there’s the acting.
When I think about realistic bipolar performances, I think of Claire Danes as Carrie, the bipolar CIA agent on the Showtime hit series Homeland. From her mannerisms to her neuroticism to her zest for life to her total devotion to her job, Carrie is spot-on bipolar.
Whether she’s cowering in the corner in the mental hospital or staying up 24/7 theorizing about the whereabouts of a terrorist she’s tracking, Carrie bleeds bipolar. She takes her meds on and off, hence the major manic and depressive episodes. She only manages to keep her job because she’s so damn good at it.
And then there’s Cam, the eccentric bipolar dad played by Mark Ruffalo in the recent Infinitely Polar Bear. He’s a bit of a loose cannon, but the film successfully focuses on the playful side of bipolar disorder while maintaining accuracy, due to director Maya Forbes’ own experience growing up with a bipolar dad.
Silver Linings Playbook features perhaps the most high-profile portrayal of bipolar, with Bradley Cooper playing manic-depressive football fanatic Pat, who falls in love with the enigmatic Tiffany (Jennifer Lawrence), herself suffering from an undefined mental illness. The Oscar-nominated film should’ve won Best Picture for its authentic acting and unique script but was beat out by Argo.
Touched With Fire didn’t give me the same feeling as any of the above depictions. I had trouble empathizing with the characters, who aren’t passionate in the same way that Carrie or Cam or Pat are. There is some zeal from Marco and Carla, but not enough to make their bipolar convincing. It’s not enthusiasm of manic proportions — and what’s bipolar without the passion? Just a boring, empty mental illness.
Photo by Joey Kuhn
Marco is constantly waving around the book Touched With Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament by Dr. Kay Redfield Jamison. He quotes Lord Byron, who is also quoted in the book’s introduction: “We of the craft [poets] are all crazy. Some are affected by gaiety, others by melancholy, but all are more or less touched.”
The film is named after this book, and its author, Jamison — manic-depressive herself — is the preeminent expert on all things bipolar. Jamison makes a cameo in the film. She meets with Carla and Marco when they are looking for advice.
Marco uses Byron’s quote to relish in his craziness. He believes bipolar is a gift — and I do not disagree with him. We bipolar individuals have a greater capacity for feeling and empathy. But this idea doesn’t come across in the film.
I know a lot of us are curious to see how we are portrayed in pop culture, but if you must see this movie, please go into it with low expectations.
The Oscars are this Sunday. My recommendation: Go see Spotlight or Brooklyn instead.
Watch the trailer for Touched With Fire below.
