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Living with clinical depression is often terribly isolating — not just because of the symptoms of depression themselves, but because of all the misinformation out there on what depression looks like and how to treat it. From colloquial use of “depressed” to mean “having a bad day” to off-handed comments about how mental health problems can be cured with vigorous exercise, eating right, or simply trying hard enough to feel better, people with depression are surrounded by reminders that those who don’t share their struggle have little to no idea what it really feels like. What that means — especially for women, and even more especially for women of color — is that people are more likely to get their symptoms dismissed, be misunderstood as hostile or inept by colleagues, friends, and family, and feel that voice of depression that tells you no one understands you get even louder.
Enter: a collection of movies and TV shows that curl around you and whisper in your ear: “So what if they don’t understand? I do.” TV shows like You’re The Worst and BoJack Horseman and movies like The Skeleton Twins and Little Miss Sunshine dropped the stereotypes and glossed-over difficult-to-understand aspects of depression and featured characters who struggle with their mental health in a realistic way, prompting a pang of recognition in anyone who’s felt the same. Depression goes way beyond a bad attitude that can be fixed in a couple of therapy sessions in these movies and shows, which feature characters whose depression colors their outlook, their physical experience, their personalities, and more.
In honor of Mental Health Action Day, we’re celebrating movies and TV shows that took the time to get clinical depression right — and made so many people feel less alone in the process. Read on for the viewing recs you need to educate yourself about depression, or just remind yourself that others do feel the way you do sometimes, and it’s okay.
A version of this story was originally published in 2021.
You’re The Worst
Dark comedy series You’re The Worst stars Aya Cash as Gretchen, a woman with self-destructive patterns and a long history of clinical depression who faces some of her biggest fears and doubts over the course of a relationship with equally acerbic Jimmy (Chris Geere). Gretchen’s often-unsuccessful attempts to enter therapy and descent into a depressive period that largely confines her to the home in later seasons are a valuable antidote to less-honest portrayals of depression as an easily curable illness for anyone who seeks help.
Little Miss Sunshine
Frank (Steve Carrell) has just attempted suicide when he comes to stay with his sister (Toni Collette) and ends up accompanying the quirky family on a road trip so their daughter Olive (Abigail Breslin) can make it to her beauty pageant. Frank’s high self-image as an esteemed scholar sit at odds with his diminished will to live in a way that neatly shatters the perception of people with depression as chronically unsuccessful or insufficiently engaged.
The Skeleton Twins
Bill Hader and Kristen Wiig are estranged twins, both suffering with clinical depression, in this dark comedy that starts with Hader’s character attempting suicide — moments apart from when Wiig had planned to do the same. This film shows how differently depression can manifest in two people as both try desperately to find balms for their persistent unhappiness and struggle with the impossible-feeling demands of their daily lives.
This Is Us
In This Is Us, both Kate Pearson’s partner Toby and Randall Pearson are shown to be struggling with depression at different points, an important (and even more rare) representation of adult men facing their mental health challenges. From Toby’s insecurities about his medication to Randall’s complete break from character in a mental health crisis, the show shed light on two often difficult to understand aspects of living with depression.
BoJack Horseman
BoJack Horseman (Will Arnett) is a washed-up ’90s TV star trying to have a fruitful second act, and this animated Netflix show doesn’t shy away from any of the realities that entails — including his struggle with depression over the course of the series. The show goes out of its way to represent the inner monologue of depression and how it affects your outlook and to emphasize that external trappings aren’t a cure for mental health.
Watch on Netflix here.
Cake
Jennifer Aniston’s moving performance in Cake offers a look at the depression that takes over one woman’s life when a car accident leaves her with limited mobility, in daily pain, and grimly convinced her world will never get bigger than it is right now. While Cake adds the element of physical pain, Aniston’s character is clearly as held back by the impossibility of wanting to wake up in the morning as she is by her bodily ailments.
Girl, Interrupted
Winona Ryder, Angelina Jolie, Whoopi Goldberg, and more star in this 1999 film about one woman’s stay at a mental hospital after a suicide attempt. While the film takes on far more than depression alone, Susanna’s (Ryder’s) journey from not wanting to live to ambivalence to a genuine desire to get better is a more honest look at a potential road for recovery than most.
Prozac Nation
Based on the Elizabeth Wurtzel memoir, Prozac Nation tells the story of clinically depressed Harvard student Lizzy (Christina Ricci) whose outward success and privilege can’t save her from the never-ending feeling that she doesn’t want to be alive anymore. Through psychiatric treatment and, ultimately, medication, Lizzy’s life slowly begins to stabilize to a bearable point.
Helen
Ashley Judd stars as Helen, a successful professor with a loving family who still can’t fight the debilitating effects of her depression as it once again mounts against her. This film unpacks the idea that one requires sufficiently traumatic circumstances in order to suffer from depression and emphasizes depression as an illness, not an emotion.
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