Numb (2007)

Simply A Masterpiece

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

It's been quite some time since i've finished watching friends and i was missing the funny, sarcastic character of Matthew Perry from it, so i thought why not watch more of his work from the past and came across Numb..After watching it i even more forgot about the joking character i knew.. He has portrayed a totally different character and nailed it! It really felt like this movie is affecting me in some way, not just passing my time. I think, emotionally it would be equivalent to the fault in our stars to give you a hint of what to expect..If you are really a fan of Matthew Perry, then you should definitely make time for this one!

"Numb" is a film I was afraid to watch. As an anxiety/depersonalisation sufferer myself, I was frightened of two things. Either that the film would portray the symptoms of this hellish condition inaccurately, giving off a message that was contrived or 'Hollywoodised', or that it would be so accurate that I would cry my heart out.Thankfully, I cried my heart out. Matthew Perry is absolutely perfect for the role, and I give credit to the director who I learnt suffered from the illness himself. I feel that, through Perry, he has displayed the epitome of Depersonalisation disorder, the effect it has on the individual and the effect that it has on the people in the individual's life.Through Perry's actions, such as looking at his hand as though it were something alien and far away with a blank expression in his eyes (something that I often did), as well as the choice of music, and the script (the script is FANTASTIC), it brought a smile to my face at the humour of a humourless mental condition and gave me humour to my own experience of it.However, the one thing that I was disappointed with was the ending. The fact that Perry does not recover made me feel very sad for his character, and for all other Depersonalisation suffers - because I am no longer a depersonalisation sufferer. The film, while funny, made the condition seem life threatening, or forever. It is not. I suffered with it for two years, and then I got a self help book to read and eventually it went away.To all you depersonalisation sufferers that watched this film, enjoyed it but felt despair at the message that you can never get better, don't worry. Depersonalisation does not seem to get better through medication or therapy as I discovered in my experience and other's experiences. I believe it needs acceptance, which is mentioned in the film, but I only wished that through Perry's character's acceptance it was shown that he got better.The difficult but only effective way to get rid of DP is what the message of the film, in a small way I feel, is trying to say, and what echoes in things I have read about DP - what you must not do is try and force normal feelings. You must wait for normal feelings to return of their own accord, which in time, they will. In their efforts not to feel the way DP suffers do they question why they feel the way they do, day in and day out, even though it is nothing to do with psychosis or any other mental illness, but to do with anxiety or the repercussions of a drug experience. They burden themselves with more thoughts and more pressure on their minds which only increases their anxiety and causes further symptoms of DP. I honestly don't mean to sound like some kind of patronising councellor because I get what its like, as shown in the film, to talk to people who have absolutely no understanding and tell people to 'pull themselves together', but I'm not talking about people pulling themselves together. I'm talking about people surrendering themselves to the condition and letting it be there without questioning what it is as its nothing but another offshoot symptom of anxiety disorder. I know this is a film review, but as crazy as it sounds, acceptance of my depersonalisation and almost finding it funny allowed me to get better. It's nothing to be frightened of because it doesn't last forever when you don't try to push it away but just live with it. As soon as you accept it and don't dwell on it with despair, you begin to recover. TRUST ME. I've recovered and I know many people who have recovered through time and acceptance as they followed the route to recovery like I did by not fearing it, not pushing it away and not what-iffing and self doubting all the time.All in all 'Numb' is a beautiful, heartwarming film that gives DP sufferers an opportunity to laugh, yet I want them to know that despite the ending depersonalisation is absolutely possible to recover from, not through Matthew Perry's depressive attitude towards it within the film, but through acceptance and knowing that it is caused by nothing more than a tired mind fixated on its own anxious condition that causes a detachment from its surroundings and itself.

Since the 'friends' era (someone was bound to bring it up), Perry's films have always shared the typical romance/comedy element, although I must nuance by saying the emphasis tended to differ, but now it seems that Matt has chosen a different path, trying to prove himself as a serious actor in drama's, although he hasn't fully abjured comedy (not that he should, as long as it remains tasteful). The recent 'The Ron Clark Story' proved to be a big hit in the rose and 'Numb' was the next logical step, providing him with a more challenging and diverse role even namely a screenwriter having to deal with a peculiar form of depression; 'depersonalization'.Judging the authenticity of his performance is very hard, seeing that I, like most people, have never heard of the condition in question. I do believe most reviews coming from people suffering from it or having suffered from it in the past were predominantly positive. Perry's natural charm and his impression of being clumsy have to be suppressed, and having dealt with depression in real life the actor can dig into his own experience to come up with a real life character, and he does so with furore, wisely underplaying and steering away from his typical comedy style, meanwhile the film still has a lot of off beat comedy moments to lighten the material at hand a bit, certainly a welcome comical relief. The low-key tone of the film might make it difficult for some people to access, but I would still recommend it to most people.7.7/10

This movie is very well written, the drama is crafted intelligently and the humor is good. The only problem I found with the film is the decision to mix the humor with a somewhat serious portrayal of the hero's condition - the way it is shown, the viewer does not know whether to identify with the hero and feel sorry for him or to just laugh from (the good) comic situations he runs into. This made me feel a bit guilty for laughing which is quite strange for a film which should be comic. Other then that, everything in the film and especially the acting is quite professional and all in all the film is very enjoyable. I give it a 10 out of 10 because it is so much better than most other comedies which are shown currently in theaters but it would probably get much less attention which would be a pity.