Family Life

Family Life (1971) was directed by Ken Loach.

The film stars Sandy Ratcliff as Janice Baildon. Janice is a young woman who has some emotional problems. She's standing at the brink of a long slide downwards. Briefly, a caring physician intervenes, but after that she's on her own.

There are no real villains in this movie, in the sense of people who know what they're doing is wrong, and do it anyway. Everyone--her parents, her psychiatrists--are convinced that what they are doing is right.

That is the paradox of this film--well-meaning people are hurting Janice without recognizing what they are doing.

Sadly, almost 50 years later, psychiatry hasn't made that much progress. True, there are many new medications, and there are many new non-medication approaches, but there hasn't been a real breakthrough. People like Janice might find themselves in the same situation, with the same bad consequences.

We saw this film on the small screen, where it worked well. The movie has a very strong IMDb rating of7.7. I think it's even better than that.

I first saw this film a few years back in a graduate school film class and it continues to haunt me with its power. During the initial screening, I actually had to leave the class for some air and collect myself: it struck a nerve that I hadn't felt sense my teenage years: the frustration of being a troubled teenager who was sorely misunderstood. . Most parents like to think of themselves as good parents if they work and put food on the table (which is hard enough in itself.) But that is not enough! Nurturing comes to play as much as being a provider and this is something the parents just don't get. And what's sadder is that they are in a highly polarized environment (1971) between young and old, both sides too quick to assign blame.

As a teenager growing up in the 90s, I experienced some of the same frustrations as the girl in this story and was all too often categorized as a "problem" simply because the adults in my life were "doing the best they could" and therefore there has to be something wrong with me. I was luckier than the girl of this story, who's best hope for salvation is vanquished by a psychiatric bureaucracy that is too concerned about appearances to have the patience to be progressive in their ways and their thinking.

"Family Life" is a rarity. A film that does not get old but can serve as a lesson and a warning to future generations.

1st watched 9/2/2002 - 7 out of 10(Dir-Ken Loach): Well played and disturbing documentary style movie about one messed-up family's life but more specifically the life of one of the children. Janice was supposedly perfect growing up, but went bad according to her parents when she started speaking her own mind and making her own decisions. The parents lost control of her and throughout this movie they seemed to be trying to fight for it back. The camera follows this family through the qwest of trying to find out what's wrong with Janice and why she's having so many problems. The sad thing is that no-one really figures this out despite many different treatments that are done on her. This movie is played out like a documentary case study, but it's actually a film played out by actors but it is done so well that it's hard for anyone to tell. Movies like this are more than entertainment, they are sobering melo-drama's about the hard things of life and how we do and don't cope with them.

Ironically this film comes across as being considerably more true to life than the numerous "docusoaps" that currently clog up the schedules on British television. Watching Family Life is as close as one can get to feeling like an actual fly on the wall. Sandy Ratcliffe is heartbreaking as the young dazed and confused schizophrenic girl, whose condition deteriorates thanks to her domineering parents. Bill Dean and Grace Cave are all too believable as the aforementioned mother and father, and are true screen monsters. Despite never believing that they are in the wrong, neither of the "oh so reasonable" parents are able to see beyond the end of their noses.

This film does have some touching moments but, alas, the ending is not a happy one. Which is especially a shame as the film does occasionally allow a faint glimmer of hope shine through.

Family Life I've seen this movie at the end of the seventies, in France, on TV. I registered it, but I lost the tape. Since, I remember a great film, the first of Ken Loach I think. Always in my memory is the last scene, Janice alone behind the students in the amphitheater's and doctor saying that the problem is in his mind and no in the relationship with her parents. I read in some reviews of this time that Ken Loach based his story on the "antipsychiatrics theories" of Dr. Ronald Laing and Cooper, that I studied in France when I was scholar, theories developed in the neighborhood of Jean Paul Sartre's existential psychoanalysis. Recently, a friend of mine, teacher of English literature in my college, initiate a curse on these problems with her students. She needs the original script of this film, but we don't know other that the French translation issued in the L'Avant-Scène french review.. Who could send me part of the script of this film (in English)? Thanks.