Saw Revolution #9, another film dealing with mental illness, also from 2001. It's about a guy who works at a website review magazine (back before the internet had calcified down to about 5 sites or so) who starts losing his mind, believing spam emails and certain websites are infecting his computer and his subconscious with coded messages. There's no ambiguity about this as is typical for most films about paranoia, this dude definitely needs medication.
The style of the film is much more 90s, with grainy digital film and bright, garish, over-saturated colors. His paranoia is indicated with electronic buzzes and bleeps on the soundtrack and, unlike K-pax, this has plenty of the overworked and underfunded NYC infrastructure on display. This also shows the infuriating state of affairs in the dark ages before everyone had cellphones. Much happens on answering machines and pay phones.
The film is fairly grim. The poor main character starts spiraling, lashing out at random. He has no family for some reason outside of a girlfriend of one year whose family doesn't really know this guy outside of the pain he's causing for their daughter. Her family especially is infuriating. Her brother is this meathead who believes the main character needs some therapeutic punches and her sister wants her to just walk away from this hot mess. On top of this, there's the overworked, non-interventionist public psychiatric systems. The whole thing seems hopeless. Indeed it even ends on a cliffhanger, with Billy Corgan's sneering vocals. Very 90s, very grim.
So this was not a very uplifting film and I have a hard time thinking why anyone would want to see it. It's a downer but not enough of one to change my attitude towards folks with mental issues (be compassionate, but not at the expense of your own sanity) It's not really a call to arms to change something and it's not very fun or stylish. Possibly distinct for never making a mystery out of the main character's delusions but mostly just kind of a downer.
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