Unrest

Jen Brea is one of the severely ill due to ME/CFS. She films herself, directs, interviews doctors and patients via Skype, and edits mostly from her bed in order to document the severity of her disease (and millions worldwide) and how she and her husband, her caretaker, now have to forge a different life than the one they had imagined for themselves.

Patients experience neurological issues with sound and light sensitivity and coordination, pain, POTS, cognition issues, and debilitating fatigue. Exertion whether physical or mental will bring on crashes where symptoms worsen. Doctors and researchers discuss the disease.

No longer silent and hidden, "Unrest" effectively, artistically, and beautifully brings the topic of ME/CFS out into the open for all to see.

First-time director and patient Jen Brea presents the illness in a multi-dimensional manner, demonstrating the full reality of this complex disease. The severity and seriousness of the illness is conveyed, along with moments of grace, humor, resilience, and cinematographic artistry. In addition, the trajectory of ME/CFS is historically explained and includes interviews with prominent researchers in the field in order to provide the audience with the scientific underpinnings of the illness.

I recommend this film not only for patients with ME/CFS but for anyone who loves the cinema. "Unrest" stands alone on its own merits as an interesting, well-made documentary. It is also enlightening for those who suffer from related illnesses, as the experiences portrayed in the film can be quite similar.

Unrest is a spellbinding masterpiece of storytelling, art, and social injustice commentary. Filmmaker Jennifer Brea brilliantly combines hypnotizing visuals, captivating music, and interweaving plot threads to engross the audience and masterfully accomplish what every good artwork should: profound and lasting emotion that spurs its audience to think, feel, and act in new ways. Indeed, and amazingly in a single film, Unrest evokes profound sadness, crushing frustration, mad fury, and finally hopeful epiphany that through this film and its social justice campaign, moviegoers can change the world — not just for the benefit of ME patients, but also for the benefit of the world.

One of the most compelling documentaries I've ever seen. From moment one ("Princeton Veterinary Hospital") Jen and Omar reel you into the mad, new life Jen's illness has shaped for them. The movie goes beyond educating people about a poorly-understood illness. Instead, it vividly recreates the reality of Jen and the other patients, and it does so with such humor, humanity, and loving-kindness that you feel as though you know all of these people and are deeply invested in their small triumphs. An absolute must for any documentary devotee, and anyone who struggles with chronic illness or is struggling to understand the world of someone who does.

I know this is full of superlatives, but I can't help it. Ugly crying was involved when I saw this story, but it somehow manages to be uplifting instead of despairing. I can't recommend it highly enough.

My brain doesn't work as well as it once did, so I hope you'll forgive me for being blunt. This film has been a remarkable gift for the millions of people suffering from the debilitating and almost entirely ignored disease ME/CFS. It humanizes our suffering in a way that has somehow never been done in film before. And it lays out in very simple terms the decades (or even centuries) of prejudice and ignorance that has marooned us here.

At the heart of the film are the true stories of a handful of people with severe ME/CFS, people trapped in their beds for days or for years, some unable to bear even minimal human contact.

I know this hasn't been the most coherent review...so often people with ME/CFS don't say anything because we can't say it well. Watch the movie, you'll get it.