Feeling seen

[EmilyMiller]

I’m a Studio Ghibli fan. As a member of the coastal elite, I obviously normally watch the original versions with sub-titles. But we’d never watched Only Yesterday before and - given the cast for the U.S. dub (notably Daisy Ridley and Dev Patel) we watched that version for a change.

Aside from why they got Daisy to put on an American accent (relatively well) and didn’t do the same with Dev, .

But what a beautiful and subtle movie and with the FMC obviously being neurodivergent (though never formally confirmed as such by the studio) I identified with so much.

What movies have overlapped with your own experience to the degree that you felt seen?

 

[HyunnaPark]

Love this! And I'll continue the anime theme with "Ghost in the Shell."

Motoko's detached, isolated story really resonated with me as a person & a writer. She was always an outsider looking in, and it's tough not to feel that way as a writer a lot of times. I've spent decades dissecting this movie and character, and it continues to be maybe one of the largest artistic influences on me.

 

[EmilyMiller]

"Ghost in the Shell."

It’s an amazing movie I agree

 

[MelissaBaby]

I was trying to get off drugs cold turkey, staying with my mom. I could barely sleep, and she would sit up with me and watch Netflix late at night.

One night, just by chance, we came across a movie called Smashed, starring Aaron Paul and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. It looked like a lovely escapist romance, just the kind of thing we wanted.

It wasn't. It was a drama about a couple who are alcoholics. The wife, her life spiraling out of control, decides to get sober. Her husband does not. It spoke to me about the struggle against addiction and co-dependency in a way nothing else had. I did feel seen. And it affected my mother just as strongly. She told me that it helped her understand what I was going through in a way she had not been able to before. When it ended, we cried in each others arms.

A few years later, I joined Twitter and Mary had an account. I wrote to her, telling her how much her performance had helped me in my recovery. She sent me a very gracious reply. In thanks, the character of Mary in my series Mary and Alvin is very closely based on her, and on some of the roles she's played.

 

[MelissaBaby]

I was trying to get off drugs cold turkey,

I probably should have said it worked. Twelve years clean and sober, as of last week.

 

[ADirtyPerv]

I always related to Harold Crick from Stranger Than Fiction, not in the specific 'tisms necessarily, but in the way he feels so alien to the rest of the cast. Of course, if you zoom out and ignore the plot altogether, he's really just anyone. But that feeling of being a conspicuous imposter is a large part of my day-to-day experience. Watching him come out of his shell in that movie is cathartic.

 

[Actingup]

I probably should have said it worked. Twelve years clean and sober, as of last week.

Thanks so much for sharing that and congratulations. Sometimes the words on this page just reach out to demand a righteous group hug.

 

[Britva415]

I have a weird/surprising/unexpected/revealing one.

Woody Allen wrote and directed Match Point. It was not long after some of his infidelity scandals, and was in fact about infidelity, as well as other transgressions such as thievery. I see the movie as basically a meditation on the dread of getting caught.

I myself had been guilty of some amount of emotional infidelity and greater amounts of thievery at that point, and was a few years into my sobriety. Which also represents my recovery from not just substance abuse but also from the twisted yet compulsive behaviors I subjected other people to while an active user and abuser.

I found the movie chilling. For scene after scene, the male "protagonist" character keeps a fraction of a step ahead of getting caught and having it all hit the fan. It is chilling to live that way, and it was chilling to see it represented on screen.

"Being seen" can be not just a sword, when your negative traits are seen, but a double edged one, even. Because being seen means you see the other person too. I left that movie feeling very strongly that Woody Allen couldn't have created that film without having lived as such a person, knowing that one was screwing others over, behaving deplorably, while also still being propelled along by compulsions to continue avoiding responsibility and decency. And continuing to feed the parts of oneself which one is horrified by and disgusted by, while feeling powerless to behave differently and stop adding on to an ever more rickety and destructive house of cards.

 

[old_prof]

I had to stop watching Queen's Gambit because she was me. I mean I didn't have her screwed up family history and chess was not my forte (my cousin won a U14 US championship, but I never played seriously like that). But her anxiety and her feelings about her ability was me. Way too spot on.

 

[EmilyMiller]

I had to stop watching Queen's Gambit because she was me. I mean I didn't have her screwed up family history and chess was not my forte (my cousin won a U14 US championship, but I never played seriously like that). But her anxiety and her feelings about her ability was me. Way too spot on.

I felt seen in Queen’s Gambit too, Anya was amazing in it.

 

[Rob_Royale]

Not since seeing Jon Cryer's Duckie in Pretty in Pink. I was 18 at the time and heavily in love with a lovely blonde who just wasn't real into me but was happy to take advantage of my adoration. I saw myself way too much in that character. Not long after, I made some pretty significant life changes, and I was the better for it not long after.

 

[dirk2024]

I remember how grateful I was when Thor came out. Finally! I could finally see myself as others saw me. I laughed...I cried...I had never felt so whole before. Or since for that matter.




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[MrStill]

I remember how grateful I was when Thor came out. Finally! I could finally see myself as others saw me. I laughed...I cried...I had never felt so whole before. Or since for that matter.




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You may not want to watch the second series of The Sandman in that case, given how you were depicted in that