a poisonous message

Rating: 1/10 (26 December 2016)

I really wondered what the point of this movie was, and about two-thirds of the way through the light dawned. This is a "message" movie, and the message is a poisonous one.
Sometime in the 60's we as a nation became revolted at conditions in our mental institutions, which were indeed horrific and grotesque. This is where society had warehoused everyone whose mental conditions were so extreme that even their own families could not cope with them. Government being what it is, it was never to be expected that these poor souls would get compassionate treatment.
So it was decided to grant these individuals their "rights" and release them all to the street. There was supposed to be a wave of neighborhood mental health clinics to look after them; that never transpired. As a result these poor souls now live in the street and often pose a safety risk to others. Jails and prisons are now the front line in dealing with the mentally ill.
Unfortunately a whole movement has arisen advocating for the "rights" of these people to live as they are, i.e. as mentally unbalanced people. The sad thing is that, with proper medication, many of these folks could be restored to some semblance of normality.
In clearly siding with the "right" of Nathaniel not to be medicated, this movie, in my view, sends a very toxic message whose upshot is that these people should be allowed to live their lives of misery and to continue to pose a threat to - dare I utter the word? - "normal" people. The issue of how we deal with our mentally ill is a complex and thorny one, but I don't think it's useful to maintain that it's just dandy not to treat them.