Running from Crazy

Mariel Hemingway could have done a little less about herself in this. I do get that she wanted to show her life, and how she deals with a family legacy of mental illness and suicide. But whoever had creative control on this, could have edited that down. A lot. Whether it was her or Barbara Kopple the director, the point of healthy living was made early on. But nonetheless it was an important Documentary from the perspective of suicide awareness, with a deeply personal look on what the triggers were in her immediate family. My take on this though, is that her success prevents any triggers that could lead her down the same slope that her sister Margaux went down. Healthy living helps, but it doesn't insulate you from the curve-balls life throws you. She's not out of the woods, nor will she ever be. I myself have a family legacy of mental illness, and I know this to be true. She needs to be applauded as its very hard to seek help, especially if you come from a headstrong family. I hope anyone with similar histories, gets the same thing out of it that I got. Which is that helplessness against these feelings, is not a self fulfilling prophecy. But she neglected the preventative solutions. We can get help. Its as easy as picking up a phone. Sometimes its easier to talk to a stranger about it, than someone who knows you on a suicide hot line. I just wish this documentary had stated that.

"I never finished High School".

That is perhaps the most significant line in this investigation into the Hemingway Curse (to me, no less imaginary than the Kennedy Curse). We are seeing what happens when a celebrity teenager runs wild before her mind has been suitably furnished by sensible academic tuition. The hippie drivel just keeps gushing out, with random thoughts often clashing and contradicting, and hardly a complete sentence to be heard.

As the youngest daughter by seven years, Mariel is convinced that she was an unwanted arrival in the home of Ernest's alcoholic son Jack. That is an example of the self-absorbed outlook of Mariel and her sister Margaux (her name jokingly re-spelt for a premium claret). According to Mariel, both her elder sisters were sexually abused by Jack, with Margaux remaining abnormally in love with him. And the victim-points just keep mounting up and up...

Before Margaux's fatal overdose at 42, she had also started to assemble a video along the same lines, and parts of it pop-up here, rather confusingly to those of us who may initially have trouble telling the two sisters apart. "I don't think I had a childhood" says one of them against a blurry image that could have been either, the editing itself being distinctly hippie and chaotic. We also can't quite see which of them is holding one end of the matador's cape in a pathetic bullring stunt with a tiny calf.

But we can soon see that Margaux's history is the more tragic. "There was all this coke around..." she proclaims triumphantly at one point. When she comes out of the Betty Ford Clinic, announcing that she's never felt better in her life, we can see this for the hollow boast that it is.

The pilgrimage to Ernest's remote desert cabin is conducted like a disorganised student joyride, with silly reflections about wild scenery, a predictable breakdown in the middle of nowhere, and an unexplained sequence of Mariel climbing a near-vertical rockface. Only the close-ups of the gravestones carry some emotional force. Apparently visitors always leave a bottle of Jack Daniel's on Ernest's tomb, while Margaux's carries the ambiguous legend 'Free Spirit Freed'.

If the Hemingways do have a history of mental illness, Mariel seems to have defied it with the upbringing of her two daughters, who seem refreshingly sane and well-adjusted. As for her plans to discourage the stigma of suicide by working with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, we can only watch and wait.

Though the last 10 minutes or so, which deal with Mariel Hemingway's suicide-prevention activism and participation in a walkathon, are quite touching, this unfocused documentary bogs down badly for the 90 minutes that come before. What it shows is a wealthy, white, bourgeois, deeply screwed up family of American WASPs—but if that's mental illness, then 80% of the Republican party is mentally ill. Alcoholism, drug abuse, unhappy marriages, neglected children, allegations of sex abuse and the completely typical attendant family dramas about who is lying about that abuse and who is refusing to acknowledge the truth may have a certain soap-operaish, staring-at- a-train-wreck appeal, but they are connected to the topic of mental illness and suicide by only the flimsiest of threads. The film is uncomfortable to watch because much of its "realness" is presented without context or analysis. When Mariel visits her oldest sister, Joan (Muffet), who is semi- institutionalized, Joan is clearly suffering symptoms of tardive dyskinesia brought about by long-time use of anti-psychotics. The fact that the two women giggle and reminisce as if things were perfectly normal but with no mention of Joan's condition is simply gruesome. Nor is there any commentary regarding Mariel's bizarre, exploitative decision to visit her sister after not having seen her for more than a year, apparently solely so she can film the encounter for the documentary. Scenes of Mariel's interactions with her husband who is – let's be honest about it – a cruel, sexist, abusive jerk, only underscore the extent to which the film's material is undigested; there's something both disturbing and naive about the idea that depicting emotional pain is the same as having insight into it. Unhappy families may experience unhappiness each in their own way, but there's very little in this film to hint that members of the Hemingway clan have learned much about coping with theirs.

I am a fan of Barbara Kopple's films and this is not one of her best. I'm not sure I would even call it a documentary. It's more like a self-help / memoir video. As such, it was very fitting that it had it's television premiere on OWN, where it was called a docudrama. To some that may seem a small distinction but to anyone who truly appreciates good documentaries it's huge.

This is Mariel Hemingway's story of the many years and many paths she's been on to find that something or someone who makes her feel loved, protected and okay as a human being. "Crazy"......not so much. WASP protected, never spoken of lives of great sadness and depression despite "having it all".....you bet. I am not saying mental illness does not exist in the Hemingway gene pool but that really isn't what this film is about. It's about Mariel's quest for spiritual healing and fulfillment. Part of which is the very admirable public speaking that she does to put a public face on illness and depression few wish to acknowledge within their own families.

By far, the most absorbing pieces of this film are those that are about Margaux. Margaux's own documentary footage is used extensively and it is the only portion of the film that truly captures our attention. She speaks from the place of someone who has great insight into herself and her family. Even her body language is extraordinary in what it reveals about what she knows to be true. I'm sorry to say that Mariel does not come across with that same depth of knowledge despite the years of searching.

The most revealing portions of the film pertain to truths Mariel has apparently yet to acknowledge. One is that her first husband has a cameo, out of nowhere, and appears to be having a coded conversation with her about how maintaining control has been her one big must in life lest she end up dead like 7 other family members and yet she has a tendency to inappropriately give that control away to others. Two is that her boyfriend sure looks to me like he is controlling, manipulative and openly disdainful of her. And the obvious-o-meter goes ding,ding,ding!

I wanted to love this. I watched it a few times. Suicide is a terrible thing, but I wondered if incest was the factor in that family that caused the suicide. People are not necessarily born depressed, but they can be made depressed. However, the only people who were compelling in this documentary were Muffet and Margot. They were the soul sisters of that family. Mariel is really selfish and lazy when it comes to thinking of or helping anyone else, especially her sister Muffet. I was really angry to see that Mariel was living the high life and she refused to help Muffet who was dirt poor and mentally ill. That immorality was enough for me to not ever watch another film with her in it. It was a sad case of attention seeking. There should be a sequel of how to help Muffet, which would be well received.