The therapist in popular culture is hackneyed figure. Usually a small, stocky, jewish-looking man, his fate is to listen to the lucrative if dull problems of the rich, problems more easily solved with a bit of common sense.
I know this is a comedy, and I watched it with my mom and enjoyed it. Clichés are easy to digest and enjoy. Comedy is full of them, and they are necessary for comedy to thrive. Still I have real problems with what this film is saying.
“Our Time is Up” begins with a bored psychotherapist, very reminiscent of Lester Burnham from American Beauty. He goes through his morning routine before ending up in his office, where he receives a phone-call from a neophyte therapist eager to hear how he treats his patients. Our hero is not so eager to talk, and rudely hangs up the phone.
Thereafter we meet his patients. Here are a few of the clichés he works his way through;
- a playboy who goes out with a different girl every night of the week and can’t find love
- the thin, attractive and bulimic model who’s convinced she’s obsese
- the classically closeted homosexual
- the (asian) hypochondriac
- a man with a turtle phobia
- a man who loves his wife despite the fact that she throws plates at his head
- the compulsive ass grabber
- a middle-aged man who’s afraid of the dark
After hearing them out with boredom, he receives a phonecall from his doctor telling him he has six weeks to live. It is, not surprisingly, a life-changing ordeal.
He proceeds to tell all of his patients exactly what he (and the audience) thinks they need to do. They get angry, do what he tells them, and miraculously heal themselves. All is well in psychiatry.
I understand the need for tropes in comedy but this film is disrespectful to anyone who has ever been in therapy. It proposes the classic argument that people in therapy don’t have real problems, and if they just went to their cousin Jed he’d fix ‘em up with a little bit o’ common sense.
Aside from all of that, and this is so common in short films, it’s just not a very interesting movie. There isn’t the least bit of surprise throughout. Each character presents their clichés, then are healed from them. Real people’s psychological problems often take years of concerted effort on behalf of both therapist and patient.
I once read a book on hypochondria that said that people generally go to their traditional medical doctors with psychological problems. Their GPs, trained to treat the body, offer them medication to numb the symptoms of stress, depression, anxiety etc. Their patients then wander around doped up, grateful to avoid dealing with the roots of their problems for the price of a few more prescriptions.
Their problems would have been better dealt with in therapy. Of course, if that person had watched a film like this, they might be afraid of being seen as silly or weak. One of the comments on youtube was from a high-school student whose teacher showed the film in an AP psychology class. I’m sure he’ll be the first to visit a therapist if he has problems his traditional doctor can’t handle.
This film, albeit humorously contributes to the view of psychotherapy as ridiculous and unnecessary. Not every therapist is fantastic, nor is every film. It takes a long time to find a good therapist, as it sadly does to find a good short film. I’m starting to think the Oscar-live action category is not the best place to look for them.
