Jump to content
Mental Health Forums

Films With Bpd Characters


Lauren

Recommended Posts

Boogie Nights

Numerous brilliantly disordered performances -- esp. Julianne Moore, Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds -- in this really excellent film about the 70's porn industry and its denizens in search of "family."

White Oleander

Realistic and scary portrait of Michelle Pfeiffer as homicidal BPD mother whose daughter must grow up in foster care, and their troubled relationship.

Mommie Dearest

Eerily accurate portrait of BPD/NPD Hollywood mother Joan Crawford. Based on the autobiographical book by Christina Crawford (who also wrote the intro to C. Lawson's Understanding the Borderline Mother)

Girl, Interrupted

(for the record: Angelina Jolie's character is a classic acting-out Borderline; Winona Ryder is less convincing as an acting-in Borderline in the title role) I recommend the book instead.

What Lies Beneath

Harrison Ford -- in an atypical role -- as gaslighting BPD husband

Now, Voyager

Film classic with Betty Davis, Claude Rains - middle-aged daughter of a shrewish, domineering BPD mother attempts to find her own path through therapy.

Body Heat

Kathleen Turner as seductress Maddy; William Hurt as a typically gullible non-Borderline -- great movie, too!

Ordinary People

Mary Tyler Moore is excellent as icy suburban BPD wife and mother who splits her sons and husband good/bad.

Betty Blue

Beatrice D'alle is brilliant as love-obsessed, self-injuring Betty, completely intertwined with her classically non-Borderline lover Zorg, in this gorgeous and tragic French film

Gia: Too Beautiful to Die, Too Wild to Live (1998 HBO film, available on videotape)

Directed by Michael Christofer, starring Angelina Jolie as the tragic supermodel Gia Marie Carangi.

For my money, this biographical movie is the very best screen representation of a female Borderline, vastly more emotionally insightful than Fatal Attraction. Jolie is uncannily brilliant in this Golden-Globe-winning role (and has written about her own personal experience with self-injury).

Fatal Attraction

Glenn Close as raging Borderline mistress

Sophie's Choice

Kevin Kline as Sophie's (Meryl Streep) very convincing BPD/Addict lover. William Styron's novel is even better in its detailed character study.

Single White Female

Jennifer Jason Leigh is just TOO realistic as scary BPD roommate

Sleeping with the Enemy

Patrick Bergin as Borderline/OCD husband to Julia Roberts' terrified wife.

Basic Instinct

(Sharon Stone as the classic bisexual femme fatale)

Black Widow

Theresa Russell as 'serial wife' caught by an unstoppable Debra Winger

The Effect of GammaRays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

http://www.amctv.com/show/detail/0,,8991-1-EST,00.html Joanne Woodward won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of a domineering alcoholic mother of two teenage daughters in this film version of Paul Zindel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

All About Eve

Brilliant story of friend-betraying actress/social-climber Eve Harrington, played to conniving, innocent-eyed perfection Anne Baxter.

Brilliant, entertaining classic with Bette Davis as the betrayed mentor.

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Bette again in a NonBP role; this time playing the victim of a scheming cousin out for her property. Great illustraton of 'gaslighting.'

Play Misty for Me

Obsessed onetime fling Jessica Walter stalks Clint Eastwood

Borderline

2002 film with Gina Gershon, Michael Biehn

Henry & June

(Maria de Medeiros as Anais Nin)

Breakfast at Tiffany's

(Audrey Hepburn as Borderline-Lite Holly Golightly, trying to please everyone but herself, and terrified of love)

After Hours

Fabulous dark comedy with Rosanna Arquette, Griffin Dunne

Frances

(Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

(Diane Keaton: schoolteacher by day, cruising sex-addict by night)

A Streetcar Named Desire

(or any filmed fiction by Tennessee Williams -- "Blaaaaanche!")

Dangerous Liasons

(John Malkovitch/Glenn Close as Borderline/NPD couple)

Memento (Guy Pierce as dissociative amnesiac)

Borderline Normal

Depicts the effects of maternal parental alienation on the child of a divorcing couple. 2002

Really cheesy but clinically pretty accurate 1982 TV movie with Shannon Dougherty

Obsessed

"SHE said: They had an affair. They were in love. He was leaving his wife. HE said: It never happened. Who do you believe?" 2002 TV movie with Jenna Elfman

Some actors have a certain intensity that garners them Borderline-type roles. Check out films with:

Faye Dunaway (esp. Chinatown)

Angelina Jolie (esp. Gia)

Edward Norton (esp. Fight Club and American History X)

Jennifer Jason Leigh (esp. Single White Female or Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle)

REEL PEOPLE: Finding Ourselves in the Movies

by Howard M. Gluss, Ph.D. and Scott Edward Smith

A fabulous detailed online compilation of portrayals of 8 different personality disorders in American movies.

Click on 'The Personalities' to read all about movies with BPD characters, and much more on BPD, NPD, HPD, etc. Great read!!

Movies and Mental Illness: Psychology, Psychiatry and the Movies

An extensive list of many DSM-IV disorders on film, compiled by Dr. Susan Nicosia, Professor of Film Studies, Daniel Webster College.

Annotated List of Films available on video that feature a character with BPD

As compiled by an Amazon reviewer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FICTION

Anywhere But Here

by Mona Simpson (the novel, NOT the movie!)

Really brilliant fictional first-person account of a girl growing up with a Borderline mother. Realistic, skillful storytelling & very moving to anyone familiar with BPD & its effects on family.

The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy (the novel, not the movie!)

Fabulous read -- extremely finely-drawn portrait of an adult man reviewing his life and family dynamics with a BPD mother/alcoholic father. "Ambitious and intoxicating, The Prince of Tides is Conroy´s biggest and most popular novel, a lushly evocative but riveting tale of redemption and renewal. Tom Wingo is a high-school football coach, temporarily out of a job, living with his wife and children on the South Carolina coast, where he has always lived. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, a troubled but successful feminist poet, has made yet another suicide attempt in New York. He goes to New York to take care of her, and her psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lowenstein, ask him to help in reconstructing Savannah´s past. Tom stays in New York for several months, submitting to intensive therapy in the hope of helping his sister, while becoming closer to Dr. Lowenstein. Savannah had been a fragile creature since childhood, given to hallucinations and suicidal impulses, but Dr. Lowenstein leads Tom to discover that the reasons are dark and violent, involving the whole family, and that he is their victim as well."

Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

Murder mystery by a popular psychologist-turned-author, in which one of the main characters is an explicitly Borderline woman.

The Courtship Dance of the Borderline

by Anthony Walker, M.D.,2001

A unique reflection by a psychiatrist on his former marriage to a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder, and the disturbing effects on the relationship. Read excerpts online.

Loving Touches

by David Hellerstein, 2000

A decent novel about a psychiatrist trapped between his marriage and his Borderline former lover, who is admitted as a patient to his hospital. Billed as fiction, but reads like a man who's definitely been there. Read excerpts online.

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Autobiographical memoir of a woman diagnosed with BPD and her experience in the MacLean clinic outside Boston in the late 60's. Is she truly recovered? Her portrayals of fellow sufferers read like a composite Borderline. (Read the book, don't watch the movie.)

If you must, you can also check out her self-obsessed The Camera My Mother Gave Me, chronicling her Borderline-tinged disappointment in the medical establishment.

Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

by Gerald A. Faris and Ralph M. Faris

A new book in which the authors (practicing clinical psychologists) diagnose these rock stars as BPD.

The book is really more about BPD than anything else, and certainly intruiguing are the imaginary therapy sessions the authors "reconstruct" with the rock stars on the basis of diaries and biographical material.

The Bell Jar

Slyvia Plath's autobiographical classic.

The Luckiest Girl in the World

by Steven Levenkron

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched Gia the other day and it was one of the best borderline character i seen. I thought the parts where anyone tried to go and she was terrified were so like what i do to make people stay.

I didnt like girl interupted but like the book.

sorry Dianna i not seen gone with the wind.

Just my opnion.

Take care

Tory

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone think Scarlett from Gone With the Wind might have BPD?

No...Not in my opinion anyway...BPD is usually quite incapacitating...If anything, she's the opposite...Nothing ever gets in her way...Scarlett O'Hara is one of my fave characters in literature though...But you don't want to start me off on one... :P

Have you read the sequel?...It's as good as the original, possibly better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

i have one to add.

nicole in crazy/beautiful.

she has attempted suicide and she drinks and she cheats on her boyfriend and she is violent and she just seems an awful lot like me in general..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boogie Nights

Numerous brilliantly disordered performances -- esp. Julianne Moore, Mark Wahlberg, Burt Reynolds -- in this really excellent film about the 70's porn industry and its denizens in search of "family."

White Oleander

Realistic and scary portrait of Michelle Pfeiffer as homicidal BPD mother whose daughter must grow up in foster care, and their troubled relationship.

Mommie Dearest

Eerily accurate portrait of BPD/NPD Hollywood mother Joan Crawford. Based on the autobiographical book by Christina Crawford (who also wrote the intro to C. Lawson's Understanding the Borderline Mother)

Girl, Interrupted

(for the record: Angelina Jolie's character is a classic acting-out Borderline; Winona Ryder is less convincing as an acting-in Borderline in the title role) I recommend the book instead.

What Lies Beneath

Harrison Ford -- in an atypical role -- as gaslighting BPD husband

Now, Voyager

Film classic with Betty Davis, Claude Rains - middle-aged daughter of a shrewish, domineering BPD mother attempts to find her own path through therapy.

Body Heat

Kathleen Turner as seductress Maddy; William Hurt as a typically gullible non-Borderline -- great movie, too!

Ordinary People

Mary Tyler Moore is excellent as icy suburban BPD wife and mother who splits her sons and husband good/bad.

Betty Blue

Beatrice D'alle is brilliant as love-obsessed, self-injuring Betty, completely intertwined with her classically non-Borderline lover Zorg, in this gorgeous and tragic French film

Gia: Too Beautiful to Die, Too Wild to Live (1998 HBO film, available on videotape)

Directed by Michael Christofer, starring Angelina Jolie as the tragic supermodel Gia Marie Carangi.

For my money, this biographical movie is the very best screen representation of a female Borderline, vastly more emotionally insightful than Fatal Attraction. Jolie is uncannily brilliant in this Golden-Globe-winning role (and has written about her own personal experience with self-injury).

Fatal Attraction

Glenn Close as raging Borderline mistress

Sophie's Choice

Kevin Kline as Sophie's (Meryl Streep) very convincing BPD/Addict lover. William Styron's novel is even better in its detailed character study.

Single White Female

Jennifer Jason Leigh is just TOO realistic as scary BPD roommate

Sleeping with the Enemy

Patrick Bergin as Borderline/OCD husband to Julia Roberts' terrified wife.

Basic Instinct

(Sharon Stone as the classic bisexual femme fatale)

Black Widow

Theresa Russell as 'serial wife' caught by an unstoppable Debra Winger

The Effect of GammaRays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds

http://www.amctv.com/show/detail/0,,8991-1-EST,00.html Joanne Woodward won the Best Actress award at Cannes for her portrayal of a domineering alcoholic mother of two teenage daughters in this film version of Paul Zindel's Pulitzer Prize-winning play.

All About Eve

Brilliant story of friend-betraying actress/social-climber Eve Harrington, played to conniving, innocent-eyed perfection Anne Baxter.

Brilliant, entertaining classic with Bette Davis as the betrayed mentor.

Hush, Hush, Sweet Charlotte

Bette again in a NonBP role; this time playing the victim of a scheming cousin out for her property. Great illustraton of 'gaslighting.'

Play Misty for Me

Obsessed onetime fling Jessica Walter stalks Clint Eastwood

Borderline

2002 film with Gina Gershon, Michael Biehn

Henry & June

(Maria de Medeiros as Anais Nin)

Breakfast at Tiffany's

(Audrey Hepburn as Borderline-Lite Holly Golightly, trying to please everyone but herself, and terrified of love)

After Hours

Fabulous dark comedy with Rosanna Arquette, Griffin Dunne

Frances

(Jessica Lange as Frances Farmer)

Looking for Mr. Goodbar

(Diane Keaton: schoolteacher by day, cruising sex-addict by night)

A Streetcar Named Desire

(or any filmed fiction by Tennessee Williams -- "Blaaaaanche!")

Dangerous Liasons

(John Malkovitch/Glenn Close as Borderline/NPD couple)

Memento (Guy Pierce as dissociative amnesiac)

Borderline Normal

Depicts the effects of maternal parental alienation on the child of a divorcing couple. 2002

Really cheesy but clinically pretty accurate 1982 TV movie with Shannon Dougherty

Obsessed

"SHE said: They had an affair. They were in love. He was leaving his wife. HE said: It never happened. Who do you believe?" 2002 TV movie with Jenna Elfman

Some actors have a certain intensity that garners them Borderline-type roles. Check out films with:

Faye Dunaway (esp. Chinatown)

Angelina Jolie (esp. Gia)

Edward Norton (esp. Fight Club and American History X)

Jennifer Jason Leigh (esp. Single White Female or Mrs. Parker and the Vicious Circle)

REEL PEOPLE: Finding Ourselves in the Movies

by Howard M. Gluss, Ph.D. and Scott Edward Smith

A fabulous detailed online compilation of portrayals of 8 different personality disorders in American movies.

Click on 'The Personalities' to read all about movies with BPD characters, and much more on BPD, NPD, HPD, etc. Great read!!

Movies and Mental Illness: Psychology, Psychiatry and the Movies

An extensive list of many DSM-IV disorders on film, compiled by Dr. Susan Nicosia, Professor of Film Studies, Daniel Webster College.

Annotated List of Films available on video that feature a character with BPD

As compiled by an Amazon reviewer.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

FICTION

Anywhere But Here

by Mona Simpson (the novel, NOT the movie!)

Really brilliant fictional first-person account of a girl growing up with a Borderline mother. Realistic, skillful storytelling & very moving to anyone familiar with BPD & its effects on family.

The Prince of Tides

by Pat Conroy (the novel, not the movie!)

Fabulous read -- extremely finely-drawn portrait of an adult man reviewing his life and family dynamics with a BPD mother/alcoholic father. "Ambitious and intoxicating, The Prince of Tides is Conroy´s biggest and most popular novel, a lushly evocative but riveting tale of redemption and renewal. Tom Wingo is a high-school football coach, temporarily out of a job, living with his wife and children on the South Carolina coast, where he has always lived. He learns that his twin sister, Savannah, a troubled but successful feminist poet, has made yet another suicide attempt in New York. He goes to New York to take care of her, and her psychiatrist, Dr. Susan Lowenstein, ask him to help in reconstructing Savannah´s past. Tom stays in New York for several months, submitting to intensive therapy in the hope of helping his sister, while becoming closer to Dr. Lowenstein. Savannah had been a fragile creature since childhood, given to hallucinations and suicidal impulses, but Dr. Lowenstein leads Tom to discover that the reasons are dark and violent, involving the whole family, and that he is their victim as well."

Silent Partner

by Jonathan Kellerman

Murder mystery by a popular psychologist-turned-author, in which one of the main characters is an explicitly Borderline woman.

The Courtship Dance of the Borderline

by Anthony Walker, M.D.,2001

A unique reflection by a psychiatrist on his former marriage to a patient with Borderline Personality Disorder, and the disturbing effects on the relationship. Read excerpts online.

Loving Touches

by David Hellerstein, 2000

A decent novel about a psychiatrist trapped between his marriage and his Borderline former lover, who is admitted as a patient to his hospital. Billed as fiction, but reads like a man who's definitely been there. Read excerpts online.

Girl, Interrupted

by Susanna Kaysen

Autobiographical memoir of a woman diagnosed with BPD and her experience in the MacLean clinic outside Boston in the late 60's. Is she truly recovered? Her portrayals of fellow sufferers read like a composite Borderline. (Read the book, don't watch the movie.)

If you must, you can also check out her self-obsessed The Camera My Mother Gave Me, chronicling her Borderline-tinged disappointment in the medical establishment.

Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

by Gerald A. Faris and Ralph M. Faris

A new book in which the authors (practicing clinical psychologists) diagnose these rock stars as BPD.

The book is really more about BPD than anything else, and certainly intruiguing are the imaginary therapy sessions the authors "reconstruct" with the rock stars on the basis of diaries and biographical material.

The Bell Jar

Slyvia Plath's autobiographical classic.

The Luckiest Girl in the World

by Steven Levenkron

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Link to comment
Share on other sites

[size=7 :) In regards to that movie White Oleander, which I loved. I think that girl who played as the daughter may have had bpd too. I could be wrong.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I loved White Oleander. I cried through the whole movie! I believe that her daughter was def. showing traits but I am not sure if she fit five of the eights of the DSM IV criteria. The mother for sure had BPD!!!!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I don't know if any of you has heard of this movie called 'The Paper Boy' . The paper boy whose name is Johnny. He was a classic clear cut case of bpd. He was a loner who fell in love with his new nieghbour. He saw her as his mother. He constantly was trying to be around her any way he could. He even got to the point where he would kill anyone who got in his way of getting close to this woman whom he worshipped.

Let me know if you have seen the movie. bpd happens in guys too, but is more so in women or girls.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I just watched "Girl Interupted: again." First time I saw it was when it first came out so really did not remember too much of it. I actually thought beforehand that they were pinpointing Lisa (Angelina Jolie) as BPD. But it was Susanna (Winona Ryder). I actually thought it was a pretty good portrayal of someone with BPD especially when it came to her feelings and writing and how she felt inside and her need for friendship and fitting in. She was not crazy, she was very perceptive and understood herself. Very inteligent, compassionate, sensitive. You could feel her hurt just as much as you could the other characters like Polly, Daisy and Lisa. The other characters were not crazy either they had each experienced major emotional trauma and they felt like outcasts in this world. Its really sad when you look at it from the outside but then I thought about it and I said to myself "thats how I feel about myself." Its just not right for anyone of us to feel so much hurt inside of us and blame ourselves for things that happened in the past that we had no control over. It really makes you think. It makes me want to get better.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Please pardon my ignorance but what is the difference between an acting in borderline and an acting out borderline? :unsure: Do you have any links about this ?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Correct me if I'm wrong, but as much as I can gather, someone who 'acts in' mainly inflicts most of the damage (whether psychological or physical) on him or herself, and someone who 'acts out' does the opposite...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I mainly could be described as 'acting in', if that helps. I am an introvert, often withdrawn....etc.

But I used to see myself as a 'recovering introvert' rather than BPD.i.e. my BPD traits would be far less if I became assertive and stood up for my life.

lorna

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found another film with a character that I'm sure has bpd. The movie Swim Fan...the girl Madison, who will stop at nothing to get the guy she likes..

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What about the movie "The Hours"? The woman who tried to commit suicide when she had the little boy and was pregnant. The boy was the one who grew up to be gay and died of aids I think. His little sister who his mom was pregnant with ended up dying young--I can't remember why.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I watched The Hours on DVD when I was going through a particularly bad patch, and it really shook me up 'cos I could relate to a lot of it...a BPD film, definitely...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Does anyone think Scarlett from Gone With the Wind might have BPD?

No...Not in my opinion anyway...BPD is usually quite incapacitating...If anything, she's the opposite...Nothing ever gets in her way...Scarlett O'Hara is one of my fave characters in literature though...But you don't want to start me off on one... :P

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I reckon she is. After all she drove and drove Rhett away and he kept coming back, then when she finally drove him away for good she wanted him back. Seems pretty typical BPD to me!

What about D Fens?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I reckon she is. After all she drove and drove Rhett away and he kept coming back, then when she finally drove him away for good she wanted him back. Seems pretty typical BPD to me!

I think it takes a lot more to be BPD...She certainly had problems, but it's not BPD...Trust me...I did an in-depth character study of this woman. The book I have is practically falling apart. A lot of people have relationship problems, but would you class them all as BPD?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thank you for the list of movies and recommendations. I copied the posting and saved it to my hard drive. That must have been a tedious posting to type!!!

I don't know if you all know this but "acting out" is not a clinical term. Its a slang word often used by clinical/medical ppl to describe bpd behavior(s) (private or public) whether it be cutting, drinking, manipulting, calling and hanging up, tantrums, rages, or whatever...

I absolutly hate hearing someone refered to as "acting out". It implys that the individual is purposly doing things or acting............. "acting out" examp: movie star, stage They have an audeance..............just like thos who are "acting out".

Its rude and can be hurtful.

Wiz

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...