WARNING SPOILER
“Jerry lives in Milton, a quiet little American town where he works in a bathtub factory. Single, he is not left to sink or swim as he gets along very well with his cat, Mr. Mustache, and his dog, Bosco. Jerry regularly sees his psychiatrist, as charming as understanding, to whom he reveals one day that he appreciates more and more Fiona – the delightful Englishwoman who works at the factory accounting department. In short, everything goes well in his ordinary life – at least as long as he does not forget to take his medication.” Here is the summary of the film The Voices, released in 2014, directed by Marjanne Strapi, known in particular for his success with the movie “Persepolis” of 2007. The lead actor is Ryan Reynolds who’s playing Jerry, a young man with schizophrenic spectrum disorders.
Indeed, we can observe throughout the film the expression of different symptoms of schizophrenia. Notably auditory hallucinations represented by the voices of Bosco and Mr Mustache, his pets. One key scene of the film is the one where he takes the therapy of neuroleptics and all his world collapses. A return to the – harsh – reality. Jerry no longer hears the voices of Mr Mustache or Bosco and the visual hallucinations are no longer present. At this point the viewer enters into the reality of his illness and his symptomatology: insalubrious housing; a depressive mood of the character ; the reality of the murders. From a psychoanalytic point of view, pets are the representation of the id (Mr Mustache) and the superego (Bosco). This cleavage is presented to us from the first scene with animals: cleavage of the good by the dog (Jerry “you’re a good dog”, repeated throughout the film) and bad by the cat, vulgar and sadistic.
Visual hallucinations are represented in a more subtle way all along the film. The idyllic perception of his everyday life and his home perceived as beautiful and clean plunges us into his hallucinations which appear to us as being “the reality”. It’s the contrast between a seemingly strange idealization and the reality that brings us into Jerry’s schizophrenic disorder. As a result, an offbeat atmosphere with a distorted relationship to reality and complex social relationships is illustrated. We can notice that this hallucinatory state is important for Jerry during the appointment at the psychiatrist where it is question of situational analysis of the medical care ; symptoms and side effects of treatment due to a court order. Jerry reports that without drugs, he has bad moments but also moments of great inspiration and beauty. These drugs help to reduce delusions and hallucinations but without it, life seems less beautiful in Jerry’s eyes. For example, when he takes neuroleptics, the idyllic setting of the apartment turn out to be an horrorific movie scene.
We also find a delusion of paranoia with visual and auditory hallucinations projected on television but especially an erotomaniac delirium towards Fiona, the secretary of the office. One scene in the film is quite specific and shows erotomaniac delirium, when he drives back Fiona after a drink in a pub where he was invited by Lisa, another woman in the accounting department of the company. Jerry does not let her talk, he continues with his fixed idea, of inviting her to evening meal in a restaurant. We know that schizophrenia can lead to cognitive deficits and therefore affect the treatment of information. Here, we can observe a difficulty of reacting appropriately to Fiona’s environment, refusing to see that she does not want to go out with him.
To understand Jerry’s character, we must go back to his childhood. A scene represents a flashback and it is essential to apprehend the origin of its schizophrenia and the murder of the popular female characters. Indeed, schizophrenic disorders appear in Jerry during childhood, and we understand that his mother suffered from auditory hallucinations and episodes of delirium. The murder of his mother is a request of her so that she does not return to a psychiatric hospital: it is an act of love towards his mother. This act becomes a key and a traumatic episode of his life. Jerry feels, in the first place, the need to kill women as out of curiosity and irrepressible desire. We can associate this point with the scene where he kills Fiona in the forest after hitting a deer. The deer clearly explained to him – during a hallucination – to kill it , to free it from his sufferings. He pursues Fiona in the woods who had fled because she was panicked and horrified by the violent scene she had just seen. He stabbed her with a first knife wound that he had – by chance – with him and said : “I hurt you”, “you have a lot of pain?”, “It makes you suffer?”. Jerry asks the questions very calmly and with a lot of distance then smiles at the end as he need to reassure himself for his act. Here we find some symptoms such as the alteration of other feeling’s perception (lack of empathy), an awareness of improper acts and no questioning about the gravity of the acts (denial or denial of illegal and serious acts). One could see there a magic thought (feeling of all power), he can think that by killing it he will release it from evil like for his mother. Back home, he cries and confronts the words of his animals. This confrontation makes him realize the extent of his actions with Bosco (superego), the reason that pushes him to join the police. While the cat Mr Mustache, makes him understand the he knows deep known to kill it, instinct that speaks (presence of the knife on him).
References
www.allociné.fr (movie synopsis)
LOTIN Caroline, MANCEAU Gabrielle et MARIEZ Julie, M2 PCPI students.