This is a highly entertaining and intricate film that ironically puts a former TV shrink, David Hyde Pierce, in a role portraying a similar but very different character. It's difficult to adequately review what's so great about the 90 minutes you will invest in this movie, without giving away too many surprises. It's an onion that unpeels itself for the duration. It's thought provoking and surprising with dark humor that will leave you with a smile.
While it's highly recommended, mental health is a major issue for this one. If you haven't seen then movie and want to then STOP HERE and come back after you seen it. ~Spoiler Alert~ Psychosis, although unique to every patient, is seldom seen in organized and highly functioning individuals, especially severe psychosis. While there were several consistencies in this film looking at a partially treated psychotic individual, my biggest hang up was that the character's reality testing was impaired so much yet he was so organized and highly functional in other parts of his life. Given that it was not limited to delusional thinking but also hallucinations this was even more inconsistent. At times, individuals may have such severe personality disorders that their reality testing may come unhinged, but usually not with hallucinations like this.
There are several psychodynamic issues worth exploring, especially in the protagonist's needs and drives for his actions. Because it is such a watchable movie with several flaws in its portrayal of mental illness, The Perfect Host is a Perfect movie for a psychiatry in film night to discuss what's so wrong and so right about this movie.
Hi
ReplyDeleteI am a new blogger, and I'm just like you, a Psychiatrist who loves movies and loves analyzing them.
I have watched the Perfect Host and enjoyed it thoroughly. I have posted my own analysis of the film on IMDB, but I hope you won't mind me posing it here ?
" this is my take and my own analysis of this film, obviously it contains heavy spoilers to those who have not seen it, so if you have not seen it, stop reading now ..
A) the first question that comes to mind, is did Warwick imagine these people or were they ghosts or real ? obviously, the answer is easy and that he was imagining them.
but the more important question is, did he imagine them out of his own sick game or was he hallucinating ?
i will list three different explanations :
1) that he is completely crazy, and he is actually seeing and hearing those people, that is he is hallucinating.
and i find this hard to believe, because this means he is completely crazy and lost his touch with reality, but if that is the case, then he would have been noticed by his colleagues at work and they would have known that he was crazy and so he would not have continued in his job as a policeman.
So, 2) he was imagine playing, just like kids, he was not actually seeing and hearing them, but rather fantasizing that he is surrounded by people, that he has friends and that they talk and interact with him, that is, he fabricated a big fantasy world and actually pretended to believe it. but deep inside he knew it was not real. something that is called Fixed Fantasy.
maybe similar to Factitious disorders, where people fake their illness for attention so much that they sort of start to believe it is real.
3) Drugs and intoxication, probably very close to number 2 above, where he fantasize about having friends and people around him and he enhances the experience by using drugs, like hallucinogens which helps him to actually experience, see and hear these people. and unlike in number 1, people who are using drugs don't lose their touch with reality most of the time and know that what they are seeing are not real.
a side not here, the whole thing about Red and White wines, probably he mix the Red wine with sedatives, while he mix the White wines with stimulants and hallucinogens, and so he drinks the White to enhance his fantasy world, and that is why i noticed him starting seeing more and more people in his house as he drank more, maybe stronger effects of the increasing amount of drugs in his system ?
there could have been a 4th explanation, that is he has a multiple personality disorder, but usually, the other personalities take over completely and do not coexist at the same time, so i dismissed that possibility.
so i guess most likely, it is option number 3 that is closer to what really is happening. "
So as you can see, I think it was some form of substance intoxication with a fragile personality.