Mrs. Dalloway and The Breakfast Club

The other day, I wrote on The Hours, which had obvious ties to Mrs. Dalloway. But, The Hours isn't the only film that has similarities to Mrs. Dalloway. In fact, though it is seemingly incredibly different from Mrs. Dalloway, The Breakfast Club has many similarities to the novel.

First, there's a similar theme to both books. In The Hours story of Virginia Woolf writing Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia mentions that she aims to tell the story of a woman's life in one day, which the novel certainly comes close to. In the book, there are several scenes where we see how people perceive Clarissa, while she shows Clarissa is very different than people's perceptions of her, and leaves us to decide whether this is a good or bad thing. The Breakfast Club tells a similar story: five teenagers judged by their outward appearances rather than who they truly are. Throughout the movie we learn that they're not just "a brain, and an athlete, and a basket case, a princess, and a criminal" as the movie claims. There's a reason they got that way, and that's what the whole movie explores, much like in Mrs. Dalloway. Be it parents who are incredibly strict, abusive, or ignore their child, there's a definite reason for the way each of the teens turned out, and through their arguments, heartfelt discussions, their "crimes," and even just the way they fidget when they're bored, we get a definite sense of how they followed the path they did. And much like in Mrs. Dalloway, they don't necessarily seem to regret the path they chose, but they do seem to be bothered by the fact that their options are so limited.

Much as with the way Virginia Woolf depicts the characters by showing their side of the story in Mrs. Dalloway and making almost every character likable in some sense as a result, in The Breakfast Club we see the same sort of thing. At first all the teens can't stand each other, much less being stuck in detention together, but through a common enemy (the principal) and after many arguments, they start to at least understand the others' points of view, even if they don't embrace it themselves. They even become some sort of friends by the end of the day.

At the end of the day, though we feel a lot has happened throughout Mrs. Dalloway, nothing really changes, and we are left with a sort of unresolved ending as Peter sees Clarissa as the book ends. In the same way, the end of The Breakfast Club still has a sense of incompleteness. Yes, the characters come to understand each other, and Bender ends up with Claire while Andrew ends up with Allison (who also gets a makeover), we can tell that the not much has changed. Bender still has two months of detention to work off. The characters, as we can tell, aren't just going to ditch their friends and hang out together, and in fact, they agree the popular among them would likely not even greet the others if they see each other in the hall. The characters haven't really changed; they won't stand up to their parents or teachers or peers any more or less than they already had. The end definitely shows this, as Claire uses her charm to get Brian to do the essay for all of them "since he's the smartest." We get the impression this is neither the first nor last time she'll use this technique. And Brian still ends up alone, writing the essay.

The essay is a final point of absurdity—as the teens say in the movie "Dear Mr. Vernon, we accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in detention for whatever it was we did wrong. What we did was wrong. But we think you're crazy to make an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is a brain... and an athlete... and a basket case... a princess... and a criminal.... Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club." It certainly is crazy. It takes Virginia Woolf an entire book to describe Clarissa, and they're expected to describe themselves in 1000 words? The Breakfast Club aren't the only ones who would think that that is crazy.

The Hours

I'm not quite sure what to think of The Hours, the movie we watched in class the past week. Its interpretation of Mrs. Dalloway throughout three time periods was certainly interesting. The music was superb, and certainly helped to make the time transitions easy to understand. That is something that most films struggle with, and the confusion makes having multiple storylines and times impractical, if not damning for the movie—fortunately, The Hours managed to avoid this. The visuals were also well done—the hotel scene where water starts filling the room comes to mind. Aesthetically, the movie was very well done.

Now comes the tough part—the plot. The plot was okay. The modern adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway was interesting in how it was done: it didn't do a straight 1-1 adaptation of Mrs. Dalloway, several characters were tweaked, and the film emphasized the darkness of the book. Virginia Woolf's story was interesting to see for biographical information, even if it did sort of glorify Virginia Woolf to almost a parody of the tortured artist, in a way akin to Mark Zuckerberg's glorified cruelness in The Social Network as he hacks out code, abandons his friends, and provokes people while saying smart-ass things at breakneck pace throughout the film, where in real life he was kind of a dick without the cleverness and coolness the film gives him. Virginia doesn't seem exaggerated as Mark did, but there's a subtle itch I can't scratch whenever I see her onscreen. I feel like it was more the writers than anything; Nicole Kidman did a great job in the film. In fact, I feel that that's why I was able to tolerate it; her performance made the exaggerated writing seem almost natural. Lastly we have Laura's story. This I felt was the most inventive adaptation of the novel throughout the movie. The modern adaptation in New York felt a little flat, plus I already knew the story. Virginia Woolf's story was more interesting, but as I mentioned, something felt just a tiny bit off. Laura's story was the story that the modern retelling should have been. It truly seemed to capture the essence of the story, with more depth than any of the other stories. Laura, like Mrs. Dalloway, doesn't necessarily hate any part of her life, but feels she's trapped more than anything. I don't get the impression that she even dislikes her husband, it just seems like she feels she doesn't fit in her current life. This is where Mrs. Dalloway differs from the movie, since Clarissa seems to be happy in her life, but notices she's at the point where she doesn't have any options any more. Laura is clearly depressed, possibly because she doesn't feel she's good enough at the role of housewife to be a part of that lifestyle—she can't even bake a cake and it devastates her.

In class, it was brought up that Richard's suicide was surprising, along with his relation to Laura. Unfortunately, I've seen Fight Club too many times, watched too many Alfred Hitchcock movies, read too much Dan Brown and Chuck Palahniuk, and played too many video games to the point where I can see a twist coming miles away. This movie was no different. I appreciate the foreshadowing in movies—it shows that the writers and director didn't just watch The Sixth Sense and decide that their movie needs a twist like that without support—however, since there was foreshadowing in The Hours, I knew where a lot of it was going. When Virginia says "the poet must die," it was obvious Richard would kill himself. We are supposed to think of Septimus in the novel, but it has an obvious double meaning in the movie, as there has already been so much talk of death by Clarissa and Richard that, given Richard's role as a poet, his death would be no surprise. So when Clarissa walks in Richard's apartment to pill-bottles everywhere, it's no surprise what will follow. Similarly, as to Richard's identity as the same Richard in Laura's story, I had already noted the fact that they had the same name, though I put it off as deep involvement in the Mrs. Dalloway theme at the time. But when there was the second scene of Richard banging on the window after his mother's decision not to commit suicide, I instantly knew—not in a way I should know, by evidence to back this up, but by knowledge of themes, tropes, and cliches of twists in film, fiction, etc. The wedding picture of his mother in Richard's apartment shortly thereafter is just bonus—a confirmation of that which I already knew.

So how does this leave the film? I don't know how to feel about the movie. Perhaps this is what they were aiming for, since Mrs. Dalloway didn't end telling me how to feel, and rather left things unresolved, where I could draw my own conclusions based on everyone's perceptions of Clarissa, including her own. However, I sense that even if the film were intending me to have a sense of not knowing what to think, this is not the way they intended to achieve it. It feels like they scored a hole in one on the wrong hole. The twists I felt were unnecessary, and there could have been a better way to connect the stories, and finish Laura's story. In addition, the entire modern interpretation felt flat. I suppose it was due to the limited time, but I felt little connection to the modern Clarissa, Sally, Richard, etc. Think about it—it took Virginia Woolf over 200 pages to tell the story of Clarissa, Peter, Richard, Septimus, Rezia, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Kilman, which still seems to only get a glimpse into the life of anyone other than Clarissa and maybe Peter. This movie, in two hours tried to tell all of Mrs. Dalloway essentially three times. It was ambitious; it was too ambitious.

Septimus and Depression

Now, normally I'm highly critical of people's habit of diagnosing illnesses (especially mental ilnesses) in characters in literature, however Septimus is a special case. It is very clear from the text that he has some form of PTSD (though they didn't call it that at the time) as can be seen from his reactions to the war, with his past haunting him in the present. As seen by his suicidal thoughts and general sadness and paranoia, I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that Septimus suffers from depression (in fact one of the doctors even says such, although in a dismissive way). One of the topics that's come up a lot lately has to do with is how the doctors do not seem to treat Septimus seriously. He is repeatedly told things such as to play football, play tennis, play golf, and that "we all get depressed sometimes."

It's pretty clear that the above advice isn't really helpful. And yes, the medical community at the time had little knowledge of what shell shock truly was, and how debilitating it could be. It is truly tragic that there was an idea at the time that the soldiers suffering from shell shock were "weak" and should "man up," so to speak, or worse were cowards (a capital offense). Blaming the victim is never the way to go about treating people. Can you imagine if when you went in to the doctor with a broken arm, you were told that you were weak, and to "rub some dirt in it?" This is an entirely counterproductive practice, which is so perfectly illustrated by Septimus being driven to suicide when Holmes wouldn't leave him alone? 

But, as sad were that time was, is it really that much better today? Being depressed is still stigmatized today, in an era where the medical community knows that it is a mental illness and not some weakness of character. This isn't helped by the fact that people say things like "last night my brother stole the last cookie and I got so depressed," when truly they were sad or disappointed, but not depressed. As a result people think "I get sad sometimes, but I get over it, I don't just dwell on it."

But that's not what depression is. Depression is waking up in the morning and laying in bed for hours because you don't see any purpose in living that day. Depression is not bathing or brushing your teeth because you don't feel you're worth taking care of. Depression is being sad when something good happens to you because you don't feel like you deserve it. Depression is not caring about anything that used to make you happy. People with depression are incapable of functioning normally—anything that should, or even does make people happy is tainted in some way, and often it's simultaneous happiness and sadness. Anything that shouldn't be a big deal suddenly is, and people with depression are unable to shrug off any obstacle in their path, no matter how small. 

We give lots of bad advice to people with depression; in fact most of it is downright insulting whether or not it was meant that way. We tell them "it's all in your head," "happiness is a choice," "cheer up," and "there are so many people who have it worse than you; you have no reason to be sad." Can you imagine if you were told "there are so many people who have it better than you; you have no reason to be happy?" It'd sound ridiculous, yet we think the former is reasonable while the latter is absurd. 

I'm not sure how we should resolve this, but we should be cognizant of the fact that the world of Mrs. Dalloway is not too far from ours, and we are not that much better than those in the book when it comes to mental illness. Septimus was driven to suicide by being misunderstood by those around him. What does it say about our current society then, where depression is still seen as weakness by many, and it carries an embarrassing stigma with it? What does this say about our current perception of masculinity, as Woolf parodies the masculinity in Mrs. Dalloway?