Words on Bathroom Walls Review – Beautified Portrait of Mental Illness | Drama films

YAnd again, Hollywood is here to educate us on mental health, but not with too much realism, because that would be a negative. This is a lively and sensitively starring drama about a teenager with schizophrenia by Diary of a Wimpy Kid director Thor Freudenthal, but he feels like a semi-copyist.

Freudenthal clearly wants to say something profound and important about disease and stigma, but at the same time he seems to have cleaned up the disinfectant shelves in Boots. After a promising start, Words on Bathroom Walls transforms into another graceful and picturesque portrait of mental illness. And surely teens too will feel like they’ve already seen the happy ending of big hugs here hundreds of times.

Charlie Plummer plays Adam, a kitchen-obsessed boy in his senior year of high school who is diagnosed with schizophrenia after a psychotic episode during a chemistry class. For months, Adam has been hearing voices, represented on the screen as a trio of characters. There’s incense-oozing hippy girl Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb), horny teen Joaquin (Devon Bostick), and bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian), a baseball bat-wielding thug who shows up if Adam is feeling emotionally vulnerable . When he’s very sick, he hallucinates like a scary horror movie voice: a sinister growl telling him to do things that will hurt him and endanger others. Some may find these characters bizarre or obvious, but the incessant noise in his head is actually made.

The film is pretty good on stigma too. At home, Adam Paul’s (Walton Goggins) stepfather hides his kitchen knives and moves on tiptoe. Friends will have nothing to do with him. When moved to a new school, Adam keeps his schizophrenia a secret, even from the girl he likes, Maya (Taylor Russell). Here, the script disappointingly enters high school movie mode, giving us the usual teenage milestones – first kiss, prom night, trouble with parents – all with an artificial schizophrenic boost. It makes the film seem superficial, which is a shame, because it was seriously thought about conveying how terrifying it must be for people like Adam living with this condition.

• Words on Bathroom Walls is in cinemas from 6 November.

• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123 or by emailing [email protected]. You can contact the mental health charity Mind by calling 0300 123 3393 or by visiting mind.org.uk.