Humans have searched for answers in stories for thousands of years. Folk tales like Alf Layla and The Panchatantra swept across India and Persia and spread morality stories like Aladdin and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. Recently, stories like Disney’s WandaVision and The Master present characters who work through trauma and attempt to find themselves in a world that has changed forever. Stories are clearly important to us and going to the cinema is a great way to experience them. But how can movies and TV shows benefit our mental health?
Understanding Mental Health
It’s worth noting first and foremost that if you are struggling, you should see a therapist or speak to your doctor. Trained professionals can give you insights and care which no movie, novel, or TV show ever will.
However, those same therapists do actually utilize stories in therapy sessions. Birgit Wolz, Ph.D., MFT, utilizes cinema therapy to help patients, as films give us ways to empathize with other people who are going through a similar struggle. Additionally, therapists like Dr. Andrew Scahill testify to the value of “scream therapy,” where audiences expose themselves to their psychological triggers in a safe environment like a movie theater.
Video content like movies can also help parents manage their children’s anxiety around events like visiting doctor’s offices and tests. Movies can distract anxious children and can show them that the thing they’re worried about isn’t so bad. Clearly, movies have real potential to help us work through serious challenges, and can teach us how to navigate the stresses we feel in everyday life.
Lady Bird: Resilience
When we watch a movie, we actively participate in the story and lose ourselves in the experience — critics call this the suspension of disbelief. This means we feel as though we are going through the same challenges that our protagonists face, and that we can build the same resilience that they show.
Greta Gerwig’s Lady Bird gives us a great example of a character with tremendous resilience. Lady Bird — the movie’s protagonist — wants to leave California and go to college on the East Coast. During the movie’s plot, Lady Bird is faced with an entirely normal set of challenges and stressors: bad grades, a strained relationship with her mother, her dad losing his job, and the first steps into sex and sexuality.
Despite these mounting pressures, Lady Bird is a character with agency who actively seeks out her own identity. By the movie’s end, she moves to New York, understands her sexuality, and calls her mother to tell her that she loves her. Her struggles feel real, and audiences feel Lady Bird’s growth. Viewers can find inspiration in the way she navigates her imperfect world with resiliency and can transfer this same sense of graceful toughness into their own lives.
WandaVision: Grief
The unexpected loss of a loved one is strongly associated with depression and anxiety. Of course, anyone who experiences loss should reach out to support systems and consider consulting with professionals. But, you may also find some sense of encouragement through stories like Disney’s WandaVision.
WandaVision focuses on Wanda Maximoff’s grief after losing her husband, Vision. In the events leading up to her husband’s death, viewers see Wanda and Vision grow into a close couple who worked together and held each other closely — even when they fought. Vision’s death felt all the more real when seen through Wanda’s eyes, and this deep sense of grief gives WandaVision its narrative purpose.
In WandaVision, Wanda creates an entirely new, fictional reality in which she and Vision live together as a couple with children. However, this fictional reality uses real people as props, meaning Wanda is controlling the minds of her neighbors against their wills.
As the story unfolds, we realize that Wanda must give up her fictionalized reality and set those under her mind-control free. However, this will also mean that she must say goodbye to Vision. Wanda struggles to accept this but sees that her grief is harming everyone around her. Ultimately, she recognizes that her sorrow is toxic and that she must let Vision die.
Towards the end of the story, Vision asks Wanda, “What is grief, if not love persevering?” This question helps Wanda see her grief differently, and acts as a catalyst to set her free from toxic grief. Of course, everyone deals with loss and grief differently. But perhaps the comfort that Vision gives Wanda can also inspire us to rethink loss and our connection to those who have passed on.
Still Walking: Fatigue
It would be patronizing to suggest that movies alone could solve chronic fatigue — a physical condition that may take root in mental illnesses like depression. If you suspect you suffer from chronic fatigue, you should consult with a medical professional as soon as possible.
However, for many of us, fatigue is more like a “funk” that we can get out of with healthier habits and positive mindsets. When looking to movies that can help you get out of a funk, it can be tempting to head straight to documentaries and sports flicks. But, what you might need is a movie that can help you relax, unwind, and de-stress.
“Feel-good” movies are released so frequently that it can be hard to choose the right one. It depends on what you think will adequately engage and relax you, but for a movie guaranteed to draw you in and help you relax, consider Hirokazu Koreeda’s Still Walking — you meet wonderful, full characters and will feel the relaxing presence of the Japanese countryside throughout.
At their best, movies show us how to navigate life’s stresses and give us a space to safely unwind. Films like Ella Greenwood’s Faulty Roots show us how to engage with mental health struggles and characters like Lady Bird can inspire us to find resiliency and grace as we move through life. We can all benefit from cinema therapy, and might find more than just a great story.