Harley Quinn, perhaps being the most well-renowned example, is a character whose personality disorder is stripped of its complexity and repackaged as a sexual allure. The following films reject this declaration and instead capture women’s mental health as a genuine human experience.
Three Colours: Blue by Polish filmmaker Krzysztof Kieślowski and starring Juliette Binoche, follows Julie, a woman who cheats death after a fatal collision which kills her celebrated composer husband. The film presents Julie's grief and depression by embodying an existential mantra, using Sławomir Idziak's distinctive cerulean-soaked cinematography and the intrusive fragments of her late husband's unfinished symphony to materialise her dissociation and emotional detachment. I especially love how it frames her mourning as a confrontation with an extreme Sartre-esque liberation of love rather than a medical condition requiring resolution.
Precious, directed by Lee Daniels and featuring Gabourey Sidibe in the title role, portrays PTSD and anxiety as direct consequences of sustained abuse and systemic neglect. Daniels utilises Precious's fantasy sequences as a deeply moving way to represent her psychological withdrawal, serving as a window into the mind of a character desperately trying to survive her own heart-wrenching circumstances. Notably, her recovery is anchored in her education from the help of her teacher ,Miss Rain, rather than just her own individual willpower. The unglamorous labour of reaching for help is one reason why I believe makes it a more authentic portrayal of understanding trauma in contemporary cinema.
...supplies a raw representation of mental health in women that rejects a romanticised and over-feminised image...
With Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, French director Michel Gondry produced a complex exploration of mental health and how it is manifested within our personal relationships. Gondry dismantles a romanticized depiction of the 'manic pixie dream girl' in the character Clementine by producing a multifaceted female main character who is unapologetic in her flaws. Although her character has not been confirmed any sort of diagnosis for a mental health disorder, many viewers see traits of BPD in her character; her unrelenting impulsivity, recklessness, and detachment supplies a raw representation of mental health in women that rejects a romanticised and over-feminised image of sexuality in suffering that we see too often on the screen.
The Virgin Suicides is a heart breaking story of how mental health in teenage girls is romanticized to the point that it becomes an invisible object of their femininity. The film follows five teenage girls through the perspective of teenage boys in the neighbourhood; the objectification of the young girls is emphasised through the male narration that renders their individual experiences with mental health. Although it is a nineties film, Coppola has fabricated a timeless commentary upon the lack of understanding and earnestness surrounding suffering in female mental health, which is why many women resonate with the film still later in life.