WORDS ON BATHROOM WALLS
****
Director: Thor Freudenthal
Screenplay: Nick Naveda, based on the book of the same name by Julia Walton.
Principal cast:
Charlie Plummer
Taylor Russell
Andy Garcia
Molly Parker
Walton Goggins
AnnaSophia Robb
Country: USA
Classification: M
Runtime: 110 mins.
Australian release date: 10 December 2020.
German director Thor Freudenthal and scriptwriter Nick Naveda have done a pretty proficient job of turning Julia Walton’s 2017 book about an adolescent boy coping with schizophrenia into an entertaining and sensitive movie. Mental illness is not easy to depict without going over the top, so it’s to their credit that Words On Bathroom Walls doesn’t venture into histrionic territory. In this case, the filmmakers have dealt with the issue by revealing the voices the protagonist hears as three characters that he, and we, can see, but no-one else can - they are a hippy girl, Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb), a lover boy, Joaquin (Devon Bostick), and The Bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian). There’s a fourth voice, too, a deeper, menacing one, but it is only ever shown as a black, threatening cloud. The only thing that seems to keep them quiet is cooking; the teenager loves experimenting in the kitchen and hopes to train as a chef in the future.
Adam Petrazelli (Christopher Plummer) is in his final year of high school, living with his single mother Beth (Molly Parker) and her new boyfriend Paul (Walter Goggins), who Adam doesn’t entirely like or trust. The adults are aware of Adam’s condition but he has taught himself to cope with his apparitions so they aren’t completely cognizant of just how debilitating his illness is until the day he has a major seizure at school and a fellow student is badly hurt. As a result, he is expelled but Beth and Paul manage to get him into a Catholic school so that he can finish the school year and its there that he meets two people who become major influences on him, even though he hides his illness from them. One is an empathetic priest, Father Patrick (Andy Garcia) and the other is the school’s beautiful dux, Maya (Taylor Russell, seen in Waves earlier this year). When Adam learns that Maya is doing private tutoring to make some money, he gets Beth to employ her to help him with his studies, although it’s not just grades in which he’s interested. He also starts taking medication to keep the voices at bay until the day he realises that there are significant side effects to the drugs, particularly impacting his sense of taste. He stops taking the pills, hiding the truth from his mum and, needless to say, the apparitions return with a vengeance. Soon, Maya starts to notice that all is not right with Adam.
A lot of research went into Words On Bathroom Walls, both the film and the book. Naveda says the aspect of the book (written for young adults) that most impressed him and his collaborators was the way the author wrote Adam’s inner thoughts. “The way he talked about his illness and the people in his life was very irreverent, and yet very earnest and kind of sweet, which made the story very accessible. From Chapter One, you were ready to go on this journey with him - even if you knew it would go to some dark places… We’ve only seen a certain kind of schizophrenia in mainstream movies, some of which haven’t been very accurate. And, while I knew we were taking creative liberties with this story, I wanted to make sure that emotionally we got it right.” For her part, Walton was happy with the result, saying “I was really lucky Nick [Naveda] wrote the script maintaining so much of the heart of the story. He emphasized all of the things I really liked about it.”
If this makes Words On Bathroom Walls sound ‘worthy,’ don’t worry - it’s not. Some of it is, in fact, quite funny and sweet and the young leads are very good, especially Charlie Plummer (last seen here in All The Money In The World). You’ll also gain an impression of what it’s like to suffer from schizophrenia. As Adam explains, “I have an illness but I’m not the illness itself.”
Screenplay: Nick Naveda, based on the book of the same name by Julia Walton.
Principal cast:
Charlie Plummer
Taylor Russell
Andy Garcia
Molly Parker
Walton Goggins
AnnaSophia Robb
Country: USA
Classification: M
Runtime: 110 mins.
Australian release date: 10 December 2020.
German director Thor Freudenthal and scriptwriter Nick Naveda have done a pretty proficient job of turning Julia Walton’s 2017 book about an adolescent boy coping with schizophrenia into an entertaining and sensitive movie. Mental illness is not easy to depict without going over the top, so it’s to their credit that Words On Bathroom Walls doesn’t venture into histrionic territory. In this case, the filmmakers have dealt with the issue by revealing the voices the protagonist hears as three characters that he, and we, can see, but no-one else can - they are a hippy girl, Rebecca (AnnaSophia Robb), a lover boy, Joaquin (Devon Bostick), and The Bodyguard (Lobo Sebastian). There’s a fourth voice, too, a deeper, menacing one, but it is only ever shown as a black, threatening cloud. The only thing that seems to keep them quiet is cooking; the teenager loves experimenting in the kitchen and hopes to train as a chef in the future.
Adam Petrazelli (Christopher Plummer) is in his final year of high school, living with his single mother Beth (Molly Parker) and her new boyfriend Paul (Walter Goggins), who Adam doesn’t entirely like or trust. The adults are aware of Adam’s condition but he has taught himself to cope with his apparitions so they aren’t completely cognizant of just how debilitating his illness is until the day he has a major seizure at school and a fellow student is badly hurt. As a result, he is expelled but Beth and Paul manage to get him into a Catholic school so that he can finish the school year and its there that he meets two people who become major influences on him, even though he hides his illness from them. One is an empathetic priest, Father Patrick (Andy Garcia) and the other is the school’s beautiful dux, Maya (Taylor Russell, seen in Waves earlier this year). When Adam learns that Maya is doing private tutoring to make some money, he gets Beth to employ her to help him with his studies, although it’s not just grades in which he’s interested. He also starts taking medication to keep the voices at bay until the day he realises that there are significant side effects to the drugs, particularly impacting his sense of taste. He stops taking the pills, hiding the truth from his mum and, needless to say, the apparitions return with a vengeance. Soon, Maya starts to notice that all is not right with Adam.
A lot of research went into Words On Bathroom Walls, both the film and the book. Naveda says the aspect of the book (written for young adults) that most impressed him and his collaborators was the way the author wrote Adam’s inner thoughts. “The way he talked about his illness and the people in his life was very irreverent, and yet very earnest and kind of sweet, which made the story very accessible. From Chapter One, you were ready to go on this journey with him - even if you knew it would go to some dark places… We’ve only seen a certain kind of schizophrenia in mainstream movies, some of which haven’t been very accurate. And, while I knew we were taking creative liberties with this story, I wanted to make sure that emotionally we got it right.” For her part, Walton was happy with the result, saying “I was really lucky Nick [Naveda] wrote the script maintaining so much of the heart of the story. He emphasized all of the things I really liked about it.”
If this makes Words On Bathroom Walls sound ‘worthy,’ don’t worry - it’s not. Some of it is, in fact, quite funny and sweet and the young leads are very good, especially Charlie Plummer (last seen here in All The Money In The World). You’ll also gain an impression of what it’s like to suffer from schizophrenia. As Adam explains, “I have an illness but I’m not the illness itself.”