This film, starring David Tennant as psychiatrist RD Laing, has a play-like quality, in that it’s pretty static and dialogue -driven, with a gloomy, cigarette stained sepia tone, and a consistently murky atmosphere.
But whereas Ian Pattison’s play on the man, Divided, had plenty of light and shade, Mad To Be Normal feels pretty one -note. Laing, presiding over and living alongside patients- portrayed by Gabriel Byrne, Olivia Poulet, Jerome Holder and Michael Gambon- is a relentlessly morose figure in a commune without hope, joy, or daylight.
Dr Laing eschewed conventional treatment such as pills, ECT and locking patients up, preferring to treat them as individuals, screaming and crying with them,occasionally taking LSD, smoking joints and drinking red wine. Suffice to say, Laing was a controversial doctor within the medical profession, symbolic of the bohemian counter-culture, as opposed to a “head -shrinker”.
Perhaps the oppressive gloom is the intention by the writers Robert Mullan and Tracy Moreton, in order to reinforce the notion that mental health problems would be better left to more orthodox methods. It seems likely Laing himself had unprocessed issues (I think this is a given, he’d likely be deemed narcissistic these days, given his arrogance, inability to be alone, and sense of entitlement).
But until his new lover Angie (a winning, likeable Elisabeth Moss) enters the fray, there’s very little that seems to be effective within the confines of Laing ‘s house. The film’s script seems to insinuate as much. A more balanced depiction may have been more welcome. But Tennant and Moss are well matched here, and their compelling performances far outclass any misgivings about the script.
Hit The North 