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TV movie "Out of Darkness" allows us to experience the turns on Pauline Cooper's life, an afro-american Medicine student who at the height of her student life is caught by paranoid-schyzophrenia, at the age of 23. Action starts on a usual day of Pauline's life and takes the viewer to a critical phase on the character life. The story also shows us the daily struggle of living with someone who is not the owner of its own will, due to mental illness, and how it can affect an entire family. The movie most inspirational scenes are those of the attempts of Pauline to restart her normal life, after endless hospital treatments and experiences with new drugs to treat the disease. The most important message of the film is a kind of a tribute and a positive inspiration to all those who fight mental problems. Diana Ross put her movie career back on the track after several years without movie appearences (since "The Wiz" in 1978). Miss Ross wisely found this project and produced it trough her ANAID Film Productions as the perfect veycule for a movie comeback. One of the most interesting aspects of the movie is that Ross is not playing a singer (as usual), and does not contributes with songs to the soundtrack, making it a plain acting-ability show, reminding us that being one of the greatest show women alive, requires more than playing singers in trouble. "Out of Darkness" is also an open door to other drama projects by Diana Ross, leaving the viewer with high expectation for more projects starring Diana Ross on the so-called serious matters of life. It is also the evidence that Diana Ross is not the distant diva at all.

Having just retired from working in a forensic psychiatric facility, I can attest that the performance I saw last evening on the Lifetime Movie Network, Out Of Darkness, is about as real as it gets. Most patients are very much aware of their illness and very aware of their treatment and the drugs they take for this illness - Paranoid Schizophrenia. Their auditory and visual hallucinations are truly real to them and control their everyday life. Clozoril, which is the drug Paulie took to experience normality, is the miracle drug used in the battle against this mental condition when other drugs fail. Although very effective, it has many, many adverse side affects.

Diana Ross should definitely have been given an Emmy award, at the very least, for her portrayal of an individual stricken with this disease. She played a Paranoid-Schizo to a tee. I don't know how I missed seeing this movie all these years. A truly remarkable performance from an individual who is a multi-faceted entertainer. A singer/actress who has had to fight her own demons and I'm sure drew on those experiences to portray Paulie Cooper. Does anyone know if this movie was in part based on a true story?

Diana Ross truly reigns Supreme in this made for '94 TV movie about a 43 yr. old former doctor battling Paranoid Schizophrenia. This is one of those memorable "TV Movies" that is actually too good for TV. Gone are the typical TV movie clichés', obvious character developing scenes, and silly subplots. Portraying a paranoid schizophrenic convincingly when you are one of the most famous and glamorous entertainers on the planet must not be an easy task, but from the very first scene Miss Ross pulls it off. This is a heart breaking story of a former doctor who struggles with the illness for 20 years. After countless bouts with hospitals, mental institutions, shock therapy, and treatment centers a new experimental drug finally offers hope. The story examines how the disease really effects an entire family and the supporting cast is superb as well. Ross was nominated for and Emmy for her performance and won many others.

Diana Ross is gripping as a 42-year-old woman just finished with her third year of medical school who is sidelined by a particularly destructive bout of paranoid schizophrenia, a condition she's aware of and has lived with since her mid-20s. The delusions and voices come and go, but when a kindly doctor intervenes with a new drug, Ross has a chance to actually rebuild her life. A sensitive, educational TV-film that strives--and perhaps stresses a might too hard--to teach the viewer something about mental illness (as well as the shame family members feel about the disease, and their eventual acceptance of it). It's a heady acting vehicle for La Ross: she takes on this highly dramatic, unglamorous (and some may say well-trodden) role and gives it bitterness, rage, confusion and, finally, hope. The narrative is engineered to relay the overall goodness of our medical community (which may seem like a stretch to Ross' character, having been hospitalized over 40 times), while the writing is occasionally too flowery. Still, a disturbing and moving effort, with a gem of an ending.

Diana Ross gives an incredible and very realistic portrait of a woman who lives with mental illness and apparently seems to defeat it. I found the movie well acted--by all its cast members---both informative and entertainingly educational in a good sense---that the educational aspects are subtle and not like a documentary. This is a dramatic and excellent movie that shows Diana Ross as a talented convincing actress. It shows that not everyone is accepting of mental illness--she gets dumped by a boyfriend who cannot handle the fact that she has survived mental illness. Highly recommended for the entire family and for those who have family members who are afflicted with mental illness, not to mention the many fans of Diana Ross, the actress in this case.