Mental Health and the Movies

“When a movie character is really working, we become that character. That’s what the movies offer: Escapism into lives other than our own.” – Roger Ebert

As you can tell by the title, this isn’t going to be a jolly subject to talk about, but I felt personally I needed to do it because for the past two years I’ve been dealing with depression and anxiety. Now I can proudly say after 15 counselling sessions over the space of 24 months I no longer suffer from depression, however, I still have anxiety issues and I’m handling them better.

The big factor that helped me overcome this, minus my counselling, were movies. Because when I was ill, I didn’t want to do anything apart from crying (which I did regularly) and after a while it gets boring.

I knew I need to escape and then one day I watched Love Actually and then again and again until About Time came out on Blu-Ray and in Tim (played by Domhnall Gleeson) here was a character I could relate to, obviously minus time travel, but it would have been handy.

IMAGE VIA WORKING TITLE

IMAGE VIA WORKING TITLE

So it’s safe to say Richard Curtis made me feel human again and I even sent him an email just to let him know how much his films meant to me. He was lovely enough to reply and to this day it’s one of the most valuable things I own.



As I was getting better and everytime I was in a counselling session I always used films to describe how I was feeling and the other genre, besides romantic comedies, I used the most were superhero films and the one character I turned to was Batman.

The earliest image I can remember was the Batman symbol from Tim Burton’s Batman on my dad’s VHS box and was terrified for a long time of Jack Nicholson’s smiling Joker at the back of the box. I grew to love both characters thanks to the phenomenal Batman Animated Series and the voice work of Kevin Conroy as Batman and Mark Hamill's Joker.

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS/DC COMICS

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS/DC COMICS

IMAGE VIA WARNER BROS ANIMATION/DC COMICS

I was starting to get better and started re-reading and buying issues of Empire magazine, listening to Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo on BBC 5live and getting to understand film more and how to write and review films, and reading Peter Bradshaw reviews was just an education. It still is.

However, I still felt there wasn’t anything that suited how I talked about movies, similar to how I talk about sport. Then I came across John Campea and his Collider Movie Talk show and then Kristian Harloff and Mark Ellis and their Schmoes Know show and I found what I was looking for, people talking about films as if they were talking about sport.

They became my friends through a screen and now whenever I have an anxiety attack (my most recent was last Wednesday, the same day as a Batman v Superman screening, perfect timing, I know) I watch and laugh as Harloff shouts at trolls or if Ellis knocks out a brilliant one-liner.

It’s from my love of film and the fact it saved me from the worst time of my life, I’ve been lucky enough to spend two weeks work experience at Empire. I learnt so much, I couldn’t even list them and the fact I was able to transcribe interviews for their Suicide Squad issue was a dream and huge thank you to Nick for giving me that opportunity and sense of purpose.

IMAGE VIA EMPIRE MAGAZINE/CLAY ENOS

IMAGE VIA EMPIRE MAGAZINE/CLAY ENOS

Now after learning so much from Empire and watching, listening and reading it gave me the belief to start this blog and give my own voice and I’m hoping to transform it into something new soon.