This film billed as a Romance Comedy is a truly original screenplay written and directed by Craig Roberts and I think it is the writing, heavily inspired by Roberts' own experiences growing up around people with schizophrenia and, specifically, a person in his life who lived with the condition that make’s this film so deeply touching and enlightening. The romance comedy classification is loose and untraditional.
The film's origin, a dark comedy, there are some very funny moments, set in South Wales stars Sally Hawkins, best known I think for playing opposite Cate Blanchett in Woody Allen’s story Blue Jasmine also coincidentally about mental health and a not dissimilar breakdown when life throws a curve ball and shatters the human experience into small pieces, difficult to put back together. In Eternal Beauty she plays the lead character Jane a woman suffering from schizophrenia an illness that escalates after a dramatic experience of being jilted at the alter at age 21.
Roberts wrote the script, focusing on a main character Jane, along with her siblings, Alice and Nicola played by Alice Lowe and Billy Piper, her mother Vivian, played by Penelope Wilton and with Robert Pugh as Jane’s long suffering (in a different way) father Dennis, navigating life after a mental breakdown.
The film is based on the writer directors personal experiences and portrays mental illness in a way that conjures empathy in the audience, feels really true to life and changes the perspective of how mental health conditions are stigmatised and mis understood.
Creative Vision: I read Roberts wrote the script specifically for Sally Hawkins and I must say I don’t think I have ever seen an actress transform herself more than for this role. Hawkins show she is a true master of her craft as she brings Jane and all her idiosyncrasies to life on screen.
The “Eternal Beauty” is this could be any family in any town, we all have probably encountered a Jane or indeed her interest Mike, played by David Thewlis. They are an unlikely couple who bump into each other at a hospital appointment, a psyche appointment, a complete coincidence where it is alleged they have some past history. He’s a little bit crazy too of course but the love story blossoms convincingly in an “Undatables” sort of way. Not cringe or cheesy, totally believable, funny, sad, human. How a love affair would probably evolve between two people enduring the most unthinkable life challenges.
And yet even though we don’t get that rom com happy ending, that would be cheesy and no spoiler alert here, you have to watch for yourself we are thrown around emotionally from the hilarious to the ridiculous to the deeply moving, to the relatable, the shocking, the mildly insane that isn’t that insane after all.
This amazing film tells a story of what happens when it all becomes too much, the accumulation of life’s dead weights on an already fragile psyche.
It shows a not usually considered angle on why being tough is perhaps better than being kind, how the sweetest souls are the one’s that don’t always survive in the mainstream and yet how a little madness is not such a bad thing after all if Etneral Beauty is something you are in search for above all else.
It’s an engrossing watch, complex, layered, thought provoking and extremely well acted from all sides. The characters leap off the screen into our neighbourhoods and lives. The viewers leave this film changed for sure, tougher for some, kinder for others, I saw traits of someone I had the pleasure to know, who wasn’t always the easiest to deal with in Mike, a musician, labelled unemployable but a deeply compassionate soul, who bypassed social norms to share his time and point of view.
Something this film reminded me, it’s OK to let your weird out from time to time, indeed it’s what makes life interesting and that little bit more refreshing.
Yep I loved it, not sure I’d rush to watch again, I don’t think it’s necessary. It’s a film you’d never forget.