Transparent

It isn't everyday that Amazon makes you feel your opinion matters. Well, actually it is.

Yesterday's reach out was about a pilot for a new show, Jill Soloway's Transparent. I think because I watched three and a half seasons of past Parenthood within six months, the robots assumed I would like it.

Who wouldn't? The selling points are (a) this is a family in Los Angeles; (b) the family is enmeshed, has terrible boundaries; and (c) there is no (c).

I assumed it would be about transgender issues, a welcome change, no pun intended, and got that right. Had the show lived up to it, and maybe it will in the future, I would have raved. The transgendered people I see in my practice hurt from our cultural lack of understanding, and they have the same needs and wants as everyone else. Feeling accepted is an impossible dream in "ordinary" social circles.

And it is very hard, seriously, to be a woman trapped in a man's body, wanting to shop, wanting to talk girl talk about hair and shoes and make-up. People don't understand, but they should.

But in the pilot, nothing beyond a difficult coming out, which is important, of course. Yet what sticks out? What cheapens the show? The lack of clothing, a transparency. First scene, gratuitous, nudity. Josh (Jay Duplass) wakes up a bit before his wife, or paramour, we're not sure. Feeling frisky, he tickles her breasts with a corner of the sheet. We see all of her lovely chest, a surprise, maybe it shouldn't be. She finds Josh's stinky breath to be stinky, but delightful. Meanwhile we see skin that maybe we didn't want to see, and a lot of it.

Jeffrey Tambor in Transparent

The queen in the closet, Mort (Jeffrey Tambor, brilliant as usual) is Josh's dad. Josh has two sisters: the seemingly "normal" one, Sarah (Amy Landecker), and the depressive, Ali (Gaby Hoffman). This is an engaging ensemble, add to the four the wonderful Judith Light as Mort's ex-wife, ministering to her second husband with Alzheimer's. Those are the types of scenes we're looking for, some of us.

And yet. I'm glad I didn't switch to Netflix (House of Cards is promising, and there's always Freaks and Geeks), a natural inclination for some of us when the camera just can't let go of the flesh. Transparent is a title of multiple meanings, physical and psychological transparency will become thematic, no doubt. Clothes can't hide the man, the woman. Ali, one of the three sibs hates her body and stares at herself nude (naturally) in a full-length mirror. She hires an abusive trainer to help her reach her goals, better arms, for one. Is this necessary, seeing every inch of Gaby Hoffman? We see all of her; she sees flabby arms. Apparently it is.

The coming out process is presented as difficult, as it often is, and handled skillfully. When it \finally happens, we see it coming. We're sure that Mort, in full dress, will walk in on Sarah and an old girlfriend who are kissing in his bedroom. He isn't the only one outed. If only it were that easy.

All of this has great potential, really, if the psychological conflict rises to the top, not the sex. Transparent hints that this will be the case. The group therapy scene in particular is so well done. But as is, there's no way I'll be back any time soon.

Sorry Amazon. Three stars. Should have been five.

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The Perks of Being a Wallflower

I know. I promised to write about what therapists do when they get bored, but therapists are all different and handle boredom differently. The work, if we're busy, is never boring, not if we take it seriously. But when we're tired, perhaps on the verge of burn out, everything can seem ho hum. 

Knowing this, some of us (me) schedule get-aways and don't tell anyone much about them.  It is obvious to people who know me this is no cruise. We are talking an airplane, at least one night in a good hotel, two movies. The movies are yet another way to get away, kick it up, inflate, punctuate. Make it different.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The poster to the right hawks the screenplay/novel now film by Stephen Chbosky, and the acting expertise of Emma (Hermione!) Watson, Logan Lerman, and the unforgettable Ezra Miller. 

I didn’t read the book yet but it is on my list, and the movie, The Perks of being a Wallflower captured me in a good way, but didn't scare me, like Pi. Some of hate being scared.

When you’re a therapist, going to psychological movies is tough-the deep dark secret behind odd behavior in a story is predictable, at least falls within top three considerations-- and we don't want to spend free evenings working out yet another life's sadness. Why work when you don't have to work, when you aren’t technically working?

And in truth, this is a vacay. Visiting children and grandchildren isn’t a vacation in the traditional sense, meaning there’s no beach, no rain forest, not even golf. The big joke in my family is that when someone asks, Oh! Do you golf? (Note, there is always an Oh!) FD will say, No, but we do carry a few clubs in the trunk of the car. This from my obsession with driving ranges, as opposed to golf courses. Why would anyone golf on a golf course knowing full well that it will inconvenience others, slow them down?

http://Ezra-miller.net

Enough about that. I don’t know if any of you ever saw the short-lived television show Freaks and Geeks, but I loved that show, all about rebellious teens, good kids, working out their issues growing up. Being different, unpopular, they had each other, and as you know, when you have a friend or two, life is fairly livable. Without that, add up the inevitable traumas of living and you wonder how anyone gets by.

Not everyone does. We just read today that Mindy McCready, a young country singer, killed herself  not long after the father of her children killed himself. (She had been accused of killing her ex-lover in a jealous rage.)  Mindy had been battling her demons (code for depression and/or addiction), but we hear about her decline and surrender to alcohol and prescription meds, and wonder what happened, how did someone who had so much become so marginalized. 

Oh, but I'm on vacation, if only for a few more hours, so back to the show.

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is about a high school freshman. Charlie has already spent time in a hospital for depression, we assume, and is hoping to make a friend that first day in September. It is a hope against hope, although his English teacher (perfect as always, Paul Rudd) offers himself for the part and is accepted, with reluctance. We know that Charlie is in some sort of recovery, and that it isn’t a true social phobia, his wallflower-ishness, because he tries really hard to fit in, does things with others, and even has a pretty good time.

At some point FD remarks, There are no parents in this movie. He says this about the same time that I say, I think I hate this movie. It is just too slow for me and the story isn't evolving, and FD is right, there are few people over the age of sixteen, not that this is bad, but it can get boring for a family therapist.

SERIOUS SPOILERS ABOUT TO BEGIN

And then! As I am considering walking away, eating, perhaps, things heat up.

There is a breakdown and a psychiatrist, and Joan Cusak makes her appearance in that role, the doctor who is tough, who won't let the patient slither away, return to his head, not without having to explain himself, and you wonder why she is bothering with it, this role, because it is short and not terribly inspiring role, even though she is good at the job and Charlie gets better.

And then you realize that this film is about what you expected it to be about, the trauma of child abuse, and that Joan likely has a vested interest in seeing that JQ Public learns more about childhood sexual abuse, bless her. That is why she takes the role.

And that is why there are no parents in this film, not until the end, not until the secret is out about the aunt and the parents find out about the aunt's role in Charlie's life. Then, only then, do we see these people, the parents, because they are supporting their son, his version of the story, and he becomes well because they believe him, as does everyone else.  Which is the way it has to be, frankly.

Whether or not it is intentional, that Charlie's parents are mere shadows for three-quarters of a film, only the directors know.  The film supposedly deviates quite a bit from the book, and if that is how, then it worked. At least for this therapist, who is back, by the way, ready, once again, to be surprised.

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