Aaron B
Being a remake, it has the original Sally Field version to be compared to. I was very pleasantly surprised to find how much I truly enjoyed this version of Sybil. Tammy Blanchard is absolutely amazing, as she is in everything I've ever seen her in.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
06/04/23
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Audience Member
Um filme interessante sobre a relação do desenvolvimento humano em um ambiente familiar violento: a sociedade humana consegue registrar e tratar as consequências sócio-psíquicas das condições de abuso, como foi o tratamento de Sybil entre 1954-1965. O filme retrata a interação entre analista e paciente de forma magistral pela atuação das duas grandes atrizes protagonistas, e é um reforço positivo na busca de dignidade humana. Ótimo filme.
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/01/23
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Audience Member
Bestest movie ever. my most favorte. could relate with sybil so much....
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
01/14/23
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Audience Member
"Past is present if you carry it with you." No, this wasn't said by a famous philosopher or psychologist, but by Sybil Dorsett, the main character of Joseph Sargent's 2007 film Sybil. This film, based on the 1973 book of the same name, examines Sybil's case in a way that will make you empathize with the mentally ill on a whole new level.
We meet Sybil Dorsett as a young art student in New York City during the late 1950s. Right off the bat, it's apparent that something isn't right with Sybil. She leaves during the middle of her class to Philadelphia, due to what we believe to be embarassment. After she tells her university's psychologist that she doesn't know why she went to Philadelphia he diagnoses her with female hysteria and refers her to Dr. Cornelia Wilbur. As Sybil meets with Dr. Wilbur, she confesses that she experiences frequent blackouts and cannot recall large periods of time. Dr. Wilbur helps Sybil recover a childhood memory where she was physically, emotionally, and sexually abused by her mother. Eventually, several different personalities with different ages and names emerge from inside Sybil. To Dr. Wilbur's dismay, her associates believe that she influenced Sybil to create the different identities. The end of the film shows the house of Shirley Mason, who, up until now, was known as Sybil Dorsett.
Sybil is quite the rollercoaster of a main character. When she was first introduced in the movie, I felt sorry for her due to her frequent blackouts. Imagine only being able to play piano while you're blacked out; this is the life of Sybil. When she starts seeing Dr. Wilbur, and her multiple personalities emerge, I started to dislike Sybil because of her anger personality, otherwise known as Peggy Lou. Mainly because this version of Sybil is very rude and aggressive, and I didn't find it particularly necessary to break the glass several times in Dr. Wilbur's office. My favorite of Sybil's personalities though, was Sid, her male personality in the movie. The little tough guy Bostonian accent paired with Sybil's irrational actions based on her perspective of how the males around her act is just all too perfect. When Mary meets Dr. Wilbur, this is when I start to wonder "what happened in this poor woman's life to make her act like this?" From her obvious hallucinations of her dead mother, to the strange whimpering noises she makes, to the grotesque looking contortions she makes while experiencing these hallucinations- it's pretty clear something really messed up happened during her childhood. The change in accents and genuine change in behavior is all too cute, and even if you don't like Sybil herself, you're bound to relate one of the sixteen characters inside of her. I just wish that the movie was longer so there was sufficient character development for each personality.
Dr. Cornelia Wilbur was another interesting character that was hard for me to dislike. Being that we know that dissociative identity disorder is a legitimate mental disorder now, I felt her frustration when all of her colleagues believed that she made Sybil create her several personalities, and that Sybil was just suffering from simple "female hysteria". The setting definitely takes a key role here: had the movie taken place during a slightly later time period, Dr.Wilbur most likely would have had more success convincing her colleagues of her groundbreaking discovery. I like how she is very sincere and gentle with Sybil, as well as with Sybil's multiple identities, even when Sybil herself is not being so gentle.
The only thing that sort of threw me off was the cryptic serial killer like music that played most of the time whilst Sybil was recalling her past. I liked how it wasn't confusing to distinguish the timeline in the movie from the constant flashbacks to Sybil's past.The ending of the movies was pretty anticlimactic and abrupt. I think the movie could have been a little longer, showing more of how Sybil behaves when she comes to terms with all her personalities and realizes she has an illness. I also don't like how it revealed the identity of Sybil Dorsett to be Shirley Mason, destroying the anonymity that had been preserved by the previous adaptation for 31 years. I would recommend this film to anyone that is interested in Sigmund Freud and the psychodynamic perspective, or anyone studying psychoanalysis.
- Kaden Jones
Rated 3.5/5 Stars •
Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars
01/28/23
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Audience Member
Great adaptation, almost loyal.
Rated 4.5/5 Stars •
Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars
02/14/23
Full Review
Audience Member
From the best movies I had seen actually
Rated 5/5 Stars •
Rated 5 out of 5 stars
02/09/23
Full Review
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