Bipolar (2014)

Powerful

A lot more amusing than I thought it would be.

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Being unfamiliar with any of the team involved, I was only drawn to this title due to having bipolar disorder myself. The film effectively manages to portray bipolar disorder about as well as Birth of a Nation portrayed people of colour. The major difference being BoaN is an accomplished film whilst this one is barely palatable. To the film's defence, the camera choices were interesting (all static, portrayed as a cross between a vlog and found-footage), and some of the ideas it had were unique, but in general, the film isn't even bad or camp enough to be risible. Some bad films manage to be so bad they supersede their badness. They're destructive yet beautiful: like watching a building collapse or a cliff fall into the ocean. This was more like watching a melon being thrown against a wall. Destructive but also baffling, slightly unsettling, and leaving me with the realisation that there are so many better things in the world I could have just watched.Acting-wise there were several attempts at comments on the banalities of life a la Tarantino and I'm still undecided as to whether or not the actors failed the screenplay there or vice versa (although I suspect it is both. I'm always wary of films that have "Hey bro!" and "Hey, it's me, your father" within the same scene. something something show-don't-tell). What I am certain of is that the acting for the vlog sections are continuously awful. The quality of the acting in combination with the median chosen reminds me less of an actual movie and more of a poor audition tape.This doesn't even begin to tread the horrors of the actual narrative - it's kind of like the opposite of Limitless. Rather than taking a mentally healthy person and making them even better, we take a mentally ill person and make them even worse. Following suit it begins to make use of as many clichés and inaccuracies as one can imagine about bipolar disorder. They're almost forgivable insofar as the film blames the symptoms that our protagonist is under - the violent outbursts, split personality, and so forth on the medication. That is until the second act where we learn that the medication was a placebo and our main character is actually an incredibly violent individual who bears traits that aren't akin to the disorder at all. The thing that pushes this film from a "truly bad" to "diabolical" is how it plays the psychotic murderer card, the split personality card, the no-chance-for-cure card for dramatic effect, and does so in a world where those beliefs are already so prominent and so damaging to the people who actually suffer with the disorder.The film finishes with the wide shot of what the image of the film's poster is - and we are greeted with the overlay of text: "Harry Poole was judged and sentenced to life. He did not stay in prison for long and was sent to a mental institution. The psychiatrists tried their best to cure him, but they were facing someone incurable named Edward Grey." (I should note that this film is not based on a true story).It's the campfire ending - the "it was the baby on the phone all along" ending, the "but he has been dead for 200 years" ending and so on. Therein lies as much as we need to know about the film: nobody should ever take anything about this film seriously. Fortunately, given the acting, screenplay, and narrative choices, it seems likely that anyone inclined to make such a mistake would be unable to sit through this film to do so anyway.

Just started watching.... after 6 and a half minutes I stopped. This is such badly executed movie I am lost for words. You don't need to watch this until the end to figure that out.The acting is so bad, I wouldn't expect to see such bad acting in amateur movie - i.e. I've seen better student movies. The dialogs are so predictable, so stereotyped...Do yourself a favor and stay away from this crap. I dunno who gave it such a high rating, this film doesn't deserve to exist, and I don't care that it might have a good idea because the execution is so bad that it is unbelievable. I would give it a minus 10 mark if I could. It is so awful that I decided to spent couple of minutes of my time to write this review so the others wouldn't waste their time on this....

There have been a few movies about testing new drugs on volunteers recently or about psychiatric medication in general, some more sinister, others less. Here, for a change, the pharmaceutical industry are not the bad guys - They are actually not even part of the movie. The story itself has been told before, so this might be the reason the director decided to go another path and tell it from the perspective of an omnipresent home-video camera. First, I don't consider it to be that original in 2014, second, the static camera angle becomes tiresome as the movie progresses. Furthermore the film lacks of balance, i.e. story development: We start right at a medical facility with the drug test, witness the side effects in the first 15 minutes. So it's very clear what will happen over the remaining 100 minutes, just a question to what extend - Unfortunately no surprises here, what is really a missed opportunity. As for plausibility: I doubt someone with a bipolar disorder would film is actions permanently, probably another diagnosis comes on top of this. Plus it seems very unlikely - although well acted - a psychiatrist would behave in such a way, especially one dealing with such disorders.

I must admit that this film didn't really so do much for me until the end when Dr Leonard (Andrew Howard) was made to consume a large amount LSD. That was probably the only reason I am writing a review. Don't get me wrong, the film wasn't at all bad but it could have been better. I've seen a few films with Andrew Howard in and he usually plays a villain or a lunatic. Think he's yet another underrated actor and look forward to seeing him in other films. The rest of the acting was mediocre, especially from the lead character who I've not seen before. All in all, not a bad film and worth a watch. I'd actually give this a 6.2/10.