Midweek Mention... Mad to be Normal

Mad to be Normal

Reegs: So, what was it called?

Sidey: Hip to Be Square.

yeah. Or Mad to be Normal. This is one of your norms,

Cris: Yes.

Dan: Did it have two different titles or

no?

Sidey: No, it didn't. It said the one title

Dan: Hip Be Square was a Huey Lewis in the news

Reegs: Yeah, we didn't put him in for our Hughes last week, but

Sidey: Did, yeah. Did you see that Back to the Future? Is getting a cinematic re-release in October, is it? Yeah.

Dan: Oh, we should old time. He's sake.

Sidey: Yes, I agree, but this is not about to future. It's mad to be normal. Yeah. A 2017 British. Film written and directed by a guy called Robert Mulan.

Cris: Yeah. I dunno how you pronounce it. It's double L though.

So it's Mullin, Mullin, Mullin. It's like a mullet, but

Sidey: And I think he's got hard on for this subject because he's also written a book about this. Oh really? Yeah. About this guy,

Reegs: the subject being.

Dan: RD Lang Katie's

Cris: Artie Artie's brother

Dan: Rd Lang. He was a Scottish psychiatrist,[00:01:00]

Sidey: a Scott

Dan: Scott, psychiatrist in London through the

Sidey: he had tried to champion an alternative

school of thought around mental health and, mental illness. Okay. So at the time, so this is in the sector in the sixties, right. And it would've been a lot of

Reegs: an era known for its

Sidey: electroshock therapy

and that sort of stuff.

And we see some of that in the film. And he was more about no, that he had a sort of like a commune, a house that they would live in together with the patients and. The staff together and they wouldn't receive any medication. And his sort of philosophy was that, how can you even relate to them or

Communicate 'em with 'em or found out anything about them when they're completely moed out by being electrocuted or having fucking tranquil tranquilizers pumped into them all the time.

Dan: You, you,

Reegs: So he, he's, he was like a non-interventionist type of therapy where there

Sidey: And, and, and that would, that would progress through to LSD?

Dan: Not, yeah. Not so

Reegs: okay. Yeah,

Dan: Not so much. No. Drugs is just not the the

Cris: prescribed, the prescribed [00:02:00] at the time.

Reegs: Mm.

Dan: You know, the,

Sidey: he was anti-big pharma before it was called to be anti big

Reegs: And of course, everybody micro doses like

Sidey: Have you seen South Park this week?

Reegs: No, I haven't. No, it's good. Yeah.

Sidey: Yeah, microdosing, ketamine.

Yeah, it's really good. You feel like a tweet every time you see, chat GBT now. But in this we meet him don't we? He's giving a lecture. And a lady, a girl. It is Elizabeth Moss. Mm-hmm. Remember

Reegs: Yeah. Yeah. And the handmaid still, and

Sidey: she's her

Cris: and Gabrielle Burns character,

Sidey: Gabriel Burn sits down next to her.

She's just there. It's like a university lecture hall type thing.

Reegs: She's a Scientologist.

Sidey: Is she?

Yeah.

That's disappointing.

Dan: Well, in, in this, she's a student psychiatrist just doing her PhD and she sits down next to Gabriel by to listening to this lecture, and he introduces himself to her and says,

Sidey: she says, oh, you, you know him.

He says, well, I, I kind of follow him. I've got a sort of academic interest in him. But there's a real buzz about him, especially in the student body because they [00:03:00] know, he's sort of like, you know, it's the sixties anyway.

Reegs: a celebrity

Sidey: wearing paisley shirts. It's like Austin Power's in the, in the,

Cris: The cost is like, yeah. It's quite

Dan: yeah. He, he's, he's very, you know, well known within the, the circles of psychiatry and that alternative scene. And every student is who following that has one of his books. And, you know, he's called by Timothy Leary. Kind of reckonings. And Jim, who's Gabriel Byrne introduces himself to Angie Elizabeth Mos and says, I can introduce you later.

And a little, the next scene after this lecture he's going to dinner with her, isn't he?

Sidey: She calls him up and just says oh. You know, I, I heard that if I, I spoke to you, you'd, you'd wanna meet up and he said, yeah, let's go to lunch then. And they go to lunch and he just sort of quiz it. I would, you know, what do you wanna know?

He's

Dan: popping olives in her mouth within

Sidey: seconds. Yeah. Two minutes later they shagging.

Reegs: right?

Dan: We won't be having food. He's like, so instead of waiter

Reegs: wait. [00:04:00] Gabriel Bernon? No, no. David Tenon. David Tenant.

Dan: David Tenet, sorry. He's, he's

Cris: Dr. Lang.

Reegs: Yeah. Okay.

Dan: And there starts this kind of relationship and she mo her moving into the, the house, which is just. You know, pretty wild. Well,

Cris: Well, that's what she says. Now they, they kind of, they, it does, doesn't show they have sex after they have a ciggy. And she's like, so where do you live? He's like, here, what do you mean this is where you work? Yeah, well, I live here as well. So that it's all, it's all together with the patients and, well, everyone else's stuff

Sidey: And she realizes that Jim. Is there Not yet. Not full time yet. Not yet initially. But he starts to appear and you realize, oh, he's a patient. Mm-hmm. He's a regular

Cris: which is occasionally fixed and then goes out and then when he is in trouble, comes back in to, to be sorted out

Reegs: Mm.

Cris: kind of thing.

Dan: Yeah.

There's you know, various people in various states of mental health that live in the [00:05:00] house.

Cris: It kinda shows you the characters. There's the lady that has been diagnosed with

Sidey: post postnatal

Cris: natal depression, and there's the guy that thinks he's

Sidey: Yeah.

Is it Ray? He's, he's really full on, there's the guy who's just got a piece of string and he's constantly tying it around his finger and, and pulling it.

And then Michael Gambon appears, and this is where it's, he sort of leans further into the alternative drugs like LSD and Michael Gamma's really got some quite severely repressed memories. That he's had since. And obviously, you know who Michael Gamble is. He's quite elderly here. And these are repressed memories when he is a child.

And, and he is really struggling still to deal with all this stuff. And he says, well, you know, this just, you know, he puts a drop of E steel in his tongue. He says, this could help you. Remember, and then the fucking memories that he remembers. Not, not a huge barrel of laughs. He remembers that his father murdered his mother right [00:06:00] in front of him with an ax and then takes him upstairs and they lie on the bed together while he comforts his son.

And then he just slits his own throat in front of the kid and you are like, oh my fucking God.

Reegs: That might have been better off repressed, to be fair.

Dan: Yeah. Certainly as you are, as you're tripping, it couldn't have been a very pleasant timeframe. But he has these alternative medicines and approaches and things, and for some people looking at the alternative, 'cause we, we meet another guy who. Is getting electroshock therapy. And you, John, is it? Yes, John. And he's you know, he's just completely outta touch. He's lost touch. He's in a, in a room and you're thinking one flew over the Cuckoo's Nest kind of

Sidey: would sort of seemed to me to be severely autistic. And that I think plays out 'cause that he doesn't leave the room and he won't. Engage with anyone else. He won't barely even eat and he's scrolling, you know, like keeping his score up there, but like, well, 5, [00:07:00] 5, 5, 5. He just numbers constantly and then it plays out eventually. Like, and, and that this is, it is sort of through him that we see the, the dynamic between the conventional school of thought of medicine.

And Katie Lang and then butting heads and say, no, he needs this sort of treatment. And, and, and Lang's just said, look, you know, you're keeping all these people on tranquilizers and as in, in a state of ification, like, who's that helping? It's just really happened. Making your life easier as the staff, you don't really give a fuck as long as they're not shouting at

Reegs: you.

Sidey: And so just randomly this John comes to the dinner table after fucking, it's been

Cris: Oh, it's breakfast. He comes, if

Sidey: Yeah. He just comes in and starts sitting and they're like. Oh, you right. And he is like, yeah. And it, it turns out that he has voices in his head that are telling him he has to count up to a million without stopping and back down to zero.

Reegs: Oh.

Sidey: And he's now done it. That's why he's able to sort of

Dan: and he, he was like just fully functional.

Then, you know,

Sidey: I,

Dan: having a conversation, just

Sidey: lost count a couple of times or the voices were just trying to distract me and you're like, [00:08:00] fuck

Dan: the

Cris: And then he said that when he got the, he's like, they, when they electrocuted me, I lost track.

Reegs: Yeah. You would do

Cris: over again.

Reegs: You would do, to be fair.

Dan: yeah. And, and so there's some quite sort of strange stories.

At one point he's flown out to America to give a series of lectures and he's a real cult figure out there he is on radio shows and you can imagine the counterculture all there. And he's in, in a hospital and he asked to go and see one of the patients who hasn't communicated and needs to be force fed.

Sidey: 18 months. She hasn't

Dan: Yeah. And within short period of time he's made. Her feel more comfortable at his presence by copying basically what she's doing. She starts to rock, he rocks. She took off her shoes, he's got his shoes off her trousers, he's got his trousers off.

He knocks back on the door and he sound. And they're like, can't believe it. And then he comes back out and the doctor's still [00:09:00] going, it's totally unprofessional. We cut and he's going, no, no,

your job is to. Help these people communicate in the best way that they can not just communicate in the way that you can, you know, he's

Sidey: a proper padded cell, like this one.

Dan: and yeah.

And, and so there's real hints of how his approach can help some people and and certainly does, tries to do minimum damage, whereas.

First of all, he's just saying, let's see how far we can connect. But as it goes a little bit further on, he does.

Sidey: Well he has a

sort of self-destructive streak, doesn't he? He's, he's already a lot.

Dan: a lot.

Cris: And he also, sorry, while all this is happening, he's the, the lady, what's her name? Angie. Yeah, Angie. She gets more and more attached to him. And she now wants a baby.

Yeah. And then he's like, initially he's like, well, why would I want a baby? I got five already and he's estranged, wife is in Scotland and whatever. And then in the end he's like, well, if you really want a baby, fine, we'll have a baby. But [00:10:00] it's almost like if you want a baby,

Sidey: He's not really into it.

They, the LSD sessions just just seemed to be like a hippie commune where they all just sat in the front room like doing drugs

Dan: as well as them.

He's dropping it all round and suddenly you're

Sidey: he's never without a cigarette or booze like he's, he's and, and Jim Gabriel burn character, who we've first met.

Seemed to have it. His shit together. He, his is really deteriorating and quoting scripture, but in a sort of violent especially when the baby comes along, he's just misquoting all these sections of the Bible and effectively threatening to kill the baby.

Reegs: Oh. Blind, me

Sidey: And Angie is explicit saying, we need, I don't want him here, you know, and, he has made, you know, actual threats against me and the kid. Yeah.

Reegs: Yeah. At this point it's unraveling.

Sidey: he, but he won't see it. And it is, they, they, they're loggerheads because he says, you don't actually give a fuck about us. You care more about the people in here than you do about us. And [00:11:00] it is now unsafe for us to be here.

So their relationship is really strange. But she doesn't leave.

Cris: No.

Well, not yet. At

Sidey: she whacks him at one point because, there, there's basically a big party going on at the gaff and she. It kicks off there and she tells him, look, you know, this is just, this can't carry on, and they're having a right ding-dong, and he says something to her like, really offensive.

That

Cris: oh, you're shagging one of the staff, the guy with the

Sidey: Yeah. Which, which she's not.

Cris: You're a whore. What?

Sidey: she slaps him and he fucking whacks her back and has, you know, gasps and all that. But she still does, even after that, she still doesn't leave. But it, the matters come to a head because the authorities come, you see all the old suits in a

Cris: well, it's not only that Gabrielle Burn's character nails almost tries to nail the guy to the cross. Yeah. The, the guy that thinks he's Jesus, there's a scene where he puts him physically on a cross, ties his arms in, and then he tries to open his fist and then he, when they walk in the room, he just looks at him and he says, oh fuck, I forgot the hammer.

Reegs: Yeah.

That's [00:12:00] what you need

Sidey: That's really annoying when you forget the hammer, isn't it?

Cris: so, and, but he almost is oblivious to the fact that he was actually gonna nail this guy's hands to the cross. What? He was more worried when these guys came in. He's like, oh yeah, fuck sake. I didn't plan it properly here. And then there's another thing where he comes in with a, a lip torch to, to torch the baby, basically.

Sidey: Yeah.

Reegs: Oh my

Sidey: So optimal.

Cris: So optimal. And that's when it kind of, and he, they're like, look, he needs to be, there's a, there's a word for it, like. Subscribed or something? Section. Section. That's the one.

Sidey: there's also Lang's been summoned to go back to his estranged wife, and it turns out he's got a terminally ill.

His daughter who's 10, I think is terminally ill, and she dies. So his mental state is not great either. And then the authorities get together and they're specifically discussing the case of John, the, the one who had to count to a million. And his previous doctor has now. Raised a complaint effectively with the medical board to say that this is all bullshit and he needs to have proper, traditional

Reegs: [00:13:00] Mm.

Sidey: And so they take him away and he is sectioned again. Which, and this is right at the very end now, isn't it? Yeah. 'cause they.

he's

getting a load of heat from Angie to say, we, I, I'm only living in this house because you are here, but I, I want us to move out. Like this is not an appropriate place to raise a baby.

And it's not, and he's just

Reegs: as evidenced by the maniac with a blow torch.

Sidey: So they, they, he, she drives them out there, didn't she? Yeah. To the hospital.

Cris: And they go to visit, like

Sidey: oh no, they're in a cab, aren't they? They're in a cab. They're in a

Cris: They're in a cab, aren't they? Yeah. They, they're in a cab,

Sidey: And he says, oh, just stop here. And he goes in with the other, the other guy's helper.

And they visit John find him in bed and they just kidnap him, take him out. I think he's pissed. Is he? Yeah, probably. And then when Angie sees him coming outta the hospital with this guy, fuck sake, and then she leaves, he just tells his taxi driver, drive on, fuck him off. And he doesn't bat an either, he just calls another cab and the end

Dan: Yeah, he, he goes with it.

I mean it,

Cris: then there's a little thing the

Sidey: real to text. Yeah.

Cris: the end that the text where it says like, this guy would, his, what was it called?

Kings Town. Kings,[00:14:00]

Kings. House Kings Town or something like that. Kingstown Kings Place House or something like that was the name of his institution. And he was like, oh, this functioned until

Sidey: Kingsley Hall.

Cris: Kingsley Hall. Kingsley Hall, sorry. Yes. That's the one Kingsley Hall functioned. Until this year, Dr. Lang has had this much success

Sidey: I think they eventually did have it shut down. Yeah, it

Reegs: So this story is really of an alternative kind of therapist and how he kind of chose his patients and his crazy way of life over his family.

Sidey: yeah, they do show that he was having some success with

Reegs: Yeah.

Sidey: His treatments maybe not in everyone because basically Jim doesn't, he, he

Cris: yeah.

He ends up back into the,

Sidey: loopy. he,

Dan: he probably had, you know, you look at the,

the.

success that. before one flew over to Cuckoo's Nest would have on that style of approach with patients and things, you know, drugging 'em all up and keeping 'em subdued and, and [00:15:00] everything.

Which may be in Jim's case in certain.

times

of his life would've been a better approach because he was

getting

Sidey: dangerous. Well, he was actually dangerous. Yeah. But if people are just quiet or they can't remember things or they've got,

is

a, there's a different approach.

Dan: Hi. His approach would've been a lot more caring and soothing and trying to understand the little subtle causes that, that made them be the way that they are and find their communication pathways.

And and so that approach wasn't really taken as seriously. Before his work. A lot of it, and I think it, it then influenced a lot of you know, different therapeutic approaches Yeah. That you would see more often

Cris: I think. What, what point of contact, I think what I, what they said was also that he, he, it was proven after his work that there was some, most of these patients were diagnosis wrong.

Sidey: Yeah.

Cris: Because they were, there were so many of them that were, they are right. He's subdued, schizophrenic. And then it turns out that there was an actual condition that was [00:16:00] not that, and they were just

Sidey: yeah, like the guy, the guy who's autistic, they would've just said, oh, he's a loony. Do you know what I mean?

And then you'll get fucking like MAGA or Maha fucking idiots now saying that there's an increase in diagnosis of autism. No, it's just 'cause the diagnosis is more accurate, you know what I mean?

Reegs: Well, and we have just more of an, an understanding of what those things constitute and all that sort of thing. Like you mean to tell me everybody in the higher maths class might be autistic? Yes, I am telling you exactly that.

Cris: Well, you know what, and, and this is, look, it's a drama.

At the end of the day, this is, this is not a happy story. And throughout the film there's a few things that you look at. You think that's mental, but it's, it's funny. But

Sidey: Michael Gambon's one was

Cris: But generally it's quite a dark film. Yeah, I would say that's my

Reegs: Good actors though. You listed off some good names.

It te was it

Sidey: Tenant Is is Katie Lang?

Cris: He's good.

Reegs: Good. I like Elizabeth Moss.

Sidey: Gabriel Burn.

Reegs: Gabriel Byrne.

Sidey: Yeah. I didn't really like it though, I have to say.

Reegs: Doesn't sound like a

Sidey: David Te for all the stuff where they try and portray him [00:17:00] as having, a different approach to it, which is, which is positive. It is. But for 90% of the film, he's a fucking asshole. Yeah. Also the film is really ugly. It's very, very dark.

It sort of lives, they live in a kind of commune and it just looks like a bunch of hippies living in a gaff. Like the young ones, it looks almost like student digs. And when it's set in the sixties and they've all got the sixties club on, that's vibrant as fuck. Yeah. And you just don't get that. I know the tone of the film is generally quite dark and challenging, but I didn't, I didn't find it a pleasure to watch.

Reegs: No,

Sidey: No, but interesting. The topic is interesting.

Dan: Yeah. I mean, he is playing a very different doctor here. It's

I like these kind of films to be honest. And I think you always have to be in the right frame of mind and because it, it is quite and it was a drama. I think it, it didn't. Completely. You know, there was poetic license within telling of the story and things to, to help make it a little more [00:18:00] watchable or get to the point a little bit quicker.

But for me, the theme was really interesting because it is talking about. A true story of somebody's life who did have an approach that was completely different to what was going on in many institutions around the world at the time, dealing with people under these really terrible conditions. you know,

madness.

you know, it was just like shunned and he had a really caring approach.

First of all, I think he's is. Probably personal life and his own

Sidey: he had demons.

Cris: Yeah.

Dan: his own demons had had played into that both positively and negatively. But I think people often will look at his work and look at his, his approach and then that helped somebody else stand on his shoulders and build it and do better that they otherwise wouldn't have before.

And those therapeutic approaches talk about now that are more the go-to movement before you start pumping people full of drugs. Probably due to people like Lang and, and [00:19:00] others that thought. You need to try and, you know, first don't just go straight with the electorate shock and all that kind of, let's try and talk to people.

So I found it really kind of interesting and I think it's obviously. A story that this guy, you say Mullen, Robert Mullen had written a book about and, and another great Scott who's come out and really great Scott has come out and you know, made a dent in, in the world in that particular field. I thought it was really interesting.

Cris: Yeah, I, I would say, I kind of half agree with, I liked it, but it wasn't great.

The, I think obviously they did it on purpose with the filming and that just to make it more dark and to make it more, it almost, sometimes it almost looked like a crack house.

Sidey: Yeah, it did.

Yeah.

Cris: it's almost like a, because they were all kind of sweaty and dirty, but at the same time, I would imagine that that's how it looked

Dan: how, that's how it would've been.

I mean, it was a,

Cris: scene that someone's either smoking or drinking. There's like, and a cigarette is just, [00:20:00] and when he meets the, the Angie at the first time, he orders a bottle of Chiante and he just next the first guy. Oh, that's the first of the day. And he's out for lunch. Yeah. So, and he just, so I kind of get why they

Reegs: take the edge

Cris: And also, again, this is based on a real story. They do tell at the beginning that this, whatever live characters are similar to

Sidey: any coincidence, are purely any likenesses Are purely

Cris: coincidence. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So to, to whoever's alive. So again, it, it's an interesting topic. I think the acting is really good.

Yeah. But the film itself also could have been probably a bit shorter, but it's a really interesting story and it's a guy that I've never heard of until now.

Sidey: I dunno how much it cost to make, but Do you wanna know how much it made at the box office?

Cris: Probably not a lot.

Dan: imagine it was, it seemed more of a labor of love than, than a commercial success.

I would say. It didn't make anything.

A

Reegs: a hundred thousand pounds.

Oh, not even.

Sidey: 82,000 US dollar [00:21:00] dues. Oh, that's not a lot, is it? No. Especially with that cast. But I was watching it thinking this probably was shot in a week.

Yeah. Tops. Yeah, because it's mostly in a house. It does look like when there's scenes of them all sitting in the lounge, like doing LSD, it's like they should be making some awesome, like psychedelic rock album or something in the sixties. But no, they're all mental cases. Strong recommend though.

Cris: Yeah.

strong,

Dan: strong.