Isn’t She Lovely 2003
Distributed by Fanlight Productions, 32 Court St., 21st Floor, Brooklyn, NY 11201; 800-876-1710
Produced by Kerry Eleveld
Directed by Kerry Eleveld
VHS, color, 23 min.
Jr. High - Adult
Psychology, Health Sciences, Social Work, Social Sciences, Film Studies
Date Entered: 11/09/2018
Reviewed by Ernarosa Tominich, MLS, Trocaire College Library, Buffalo NYThis video is sensitive portrayal of children now grown, trying to rationalize their mothers’ mental illness during their growing years and as it continues today. Isn’t She Lovely presents vignettes of how family members cope as their mother’s behavior changes from normal to the irrational. As adults, Kerry and her brother Rob have come to realize that they “can’t fix it” so they visit and enjoy their mother as she is.
A victim of manic depression and schizophrenia, their mother Lynn is a former social worker familiar with the social services system as well as her legal rights. Therefore she knows how to keep herself from being institutionalized. Each time she manages to escape from institutional living, she embarks on irrational behaviors such as hitchhiking cross-country with truckers.
Intermingled with photographs and home movie scenes, this video is more an exercise in film production rather than a self-help tool. Yet the effort is too amateur an endeavor to use as an illustration of quality filmmaking. Rather the vignettes are a well-composed effort from the California School of Journalism. Overall visual and audio quality is clear with the exception of a few frames.
This video is recommended with some reservations because it is not specific enough as a self-help instrument in the treatment of mental illness. It does not explain with any specificity schizophrenia and manic-depressive disorder nor give any clinical coping strategies. However this video can be helpful to the general public as an example of how to interact with a mentally ill family member.