Horse Girl (2020)
February 25, 2020 2:31 PM - Subscribe
A socially awkward woman with a fondness for arts and crafts, horses, and supernatural crime shows finds her increasingly lucid dreams trickling into her waking life. Starring, written, and produced by Alison Brie.
A touching, disturbing, and very loosely autobiographical movie that's not really about horses. A lot of reviews have focused on the potential ambiguity of Sarah's experience (was it real or not?), but to me it was really powerful to have the subjective experience of a mentally ill character be centered on screen and it doesn't make sense to interpret it literally.
A touching, disturbing, and very loosely autobiographical movie that's not really about horses. A lot of reviews have focused on the potential ambiguity of Sarah's experience (was it real or not?), but to me it was really powerful to have the subjective experience of a mentally ill character be centered on screen and it doesn't make sense to interpret it literally.
I liked it, too. I do not have a mental illness like the one portrayed. And I don't pretend to have expertise to insist the portrayal was accurate.
But at least for once: a mental illness was a mental illness. There was nothing magic or transcendent about it. It wasn't a "blessing." It was just a mental illness.
We talk and talk about mental illness, combatting it, fixing it, curing it, treating it, etc., but we hardly ever see it depicted in a way like this. It's a fact of life.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
But at least for once: a mental illness was a mental illness. There was nothing magic or transcendent about it. It wasn't a "blessing." It was just a mental illness.
We talk and talk about mental illness, combatting it, fixing it, curing it, treating it, etc., but we hardly ever see it depicted in a way like this. It's a fact of life.
posted by SoberHighland at 2:52 PM on February 25, 2020 [3 favorites]
I guess I did kind of take the movie literally? But mostly because I went into it knowing that Mark Duplass of "Safety Not Guaranteed" was one of the producers, so I was kind of primed for there to be a sci-fi element.
posted by oh yeah! at 5:26 PM on February 25, 2020
posted by oh yeah! at 5:26 PM on February 25, 2020
I enjoyed this a lot, the unpleasant parts and all.
My take on this was that Sarah's experiences are entirely authentic, which parts may or may not be congruous with consensual reality can be debated, but does it even matter if by definition there are parts of the complete reality that is sub rosa to consensual reality.
(That zipper on a stick! Wow, that makes so much sense.)
posted by porpoise at 7:22 PM on February 26
My take on this was that Sarah's experiences are entirely authentic, which parts may or may not be congruous with consensual reality can be debated, but does it even matter if by definition there are parts of the complete reality that is sub rosa to consensual reality.
(That zipper on a stick! Wow, that makes so much sense.)
posted by porpoise at 7:22 PM on February 26
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posted by OverlappingElvis at 2:37 PM on February 25, 2020