I noticed Linda Bishop's mental illness was described as being schizophrenia; however, in all the documentation shown in this film, her mental illness was always stated as having been diagnosed as bipolar disorder (and she had been prescribed lithium, which would also indicate her diagnosis was bipolar disorder). Considering these are actually two very different mental illnesses with different symptoms, which unfortunately aren't well understood by most people without experience with either one, I think this documentary could have done a significant service to educate people about whichever of these mental illnesses Linda Bishop truly had but failed to do so.
That said, this film was very effective in achieving what I believe it set out to do in terms of showing how poorly we are actually serving the population of people who are mentally ill in America, particularly among those who refuse proper treatment. I don't think there are any easy solutions to this crisis, but sadly, we have not even begun to discuss a better way to handle this problem, despite the fact that mental illness has been a consistent reason behind mass shootings in the US for almost three decades at this point.
I also want to comment on three things mentioned by several other IMDB reviewers. First, I believe the "boring" or very methodical way that the director chose to lay out the story of Linda Bishop's last few weeks was done specifically to put the viewer in her shoes, so that we might better be able to imagine ourselves in her situation as her life was running out - and as she KNEW her life was running out. Secondly, it is a mistake to take Linda's words about her sister spending all their family's money or their inheritance as truth because when Linda Bishop wrote those words, she was very firmly in the grasp of her mental illness, and thus might not have been thinking at all clearly. Lastly, and I think most importantly, it is also a huge mistake to think you have enough information about Linda's daughter from this documentary to diagnose her with narcissism (or any other mental illness)!!! I doubt any high school aged child WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN embarrassed by having an obviously mentally ill parent who kept refusing to take their medication (and since my own mother has been bipolar - and unmedicated - for most of my life, I am speaking from considerable shared experience with that of Linda Bishop's daughter, unfortunately). When your parent is so mentally ill that they repeatedly say and do things which hurt you terribly, you would be a fool NOT TO protect yourself by withdrawing from that person. This doesn't mean you don't love them; it means you are choosing to love yourself - and that you are choosing to love yourself because your parent is not mentally capable of loving you themselves!!! So in my opinion, which is obviously based on my own very similar experience having a seriously mentally ill parent, Linda Bishop's daughter deserves at least as much empathy as Linda herself does.
That said, this film was very effective in achieving what I believe it set out to do in terms of showing how poorly we are actually serving the population of people who are mentally ill in America, particularly among those who refuse proper treatment. I don't think there are any easy solutions to this crisis, but sadly, we have not even begun to discuss a better way to handle this problem, despite the fact that mental illness has been a consistent reason behind mass shootings in the US for almost three decades at this point.
I also want to comment on three things mentioned by several other IMDB reviewers. First, I believe the "boring" or very methodical way that the director chose to lay out the story of Linda Bishop's last few weeks was done specifically to put the viewer in her shoes, so that we might better be able to imagine ourselves in her situation as her life was running out - and as she KNEW her life was running out. Secondly, it is a mistake to take Linda's words about her sister spending all their family's money or their inheritance as truth because when Linda Bishop wrote those words, she was very firmly in the grasp of her mental illness, and thus might not have been thinking at all clearly. Lastly, and I think most importantly, it is also a huge mistake to think you have enough information about Linda's daughter from this documentary to diagnose her with narcissism (or any other mental illness)!!! I doubt any high school aged child WOULDN'T HAVE BEEN embarrassed by having an obviously mentally ill parent who kept refusing to take their medication (and since my own mother has been bipolar - and unmedicated - for most of my life, I am speaking from considerable shared experience with that of Linda Bishop's daughter, unfortunately). When your parent is so mentally ill that they repeatedly say and do things which hurt you terribly, you would be a fool NOT TO protect yourself by withdrawing from that person. This doesn't mean you don't love them; it means you are choosing to love yourself - and that you are choosing to love yourself because your parent is not mentally capable of loving you themselves!!! So in my opinion, which is obviously based on my own very similar experience having a seriously mentally ill parent, Linda Bishop's daughter deserves at least as much empathy as Linda herself does.