Eternal Beauty

Eternal Beauty, a 2019 British dramatic film skillfully directed and written by Craig Roberts, is a striking exploration of mental illness released through the colored lens of an individual's mental state, rather than a third-person perspective. This film confidently strides away from exploiting cliche narratives and executes an entirely innovative approach to presenting what it means to navigate reality through unique internal weather.

Starring the multi-hyphenate talent Sally Hawkins, famed for her roles in 'Blue Jasmine' and 'The Shape of Water' among others, this film utilizes her extraordinary gift for character immersion. In Eternal Beauty, Hawkins portrays Jane, a woman battling a severe case of paranoid schizophrenia.

The narrative does follow a chronological pattern, but the landscape of the movie is defined by Jane's way of processing the world around her. The fluency of time and events is cleverly fractured reflecting Jane's state of mind. The audience joins Jane in traversing her mental labyrinths to ebb and flow alongside the fluctuating rhythm her mental state dictates. In essence, we see the world exactly as Jane does, and that's the transcendent power of the film.

One of the defining aspects of Eternal Beauty is how it dives into the depth of Jane's relationships, especially with her family. Theatre powerhouse, Penelope Wilton, plays Jane’s mother with Morfydd Clark and Billie Piper admirably portraying her sisters. Each of them has been effectively given their narrative arcs and personalities. Through them, we see the incredibly broad spectrum of how individuals and society generally treats and responds to mental illness. The dynamics of these relationships and the honest portrayal of their interactions open multiple layers of indignities and misconceptions.

Jane's romantic interest is served by David Thewlis, known for his captivating performances in Anomalisa and the Harry Potter film franchise. His character, Mike, is an eccentric man who claims to be a rock star, and the two form an inexplicable but endearing bond that lights up the screen. Their relationship's charm and challenges only serve to enhance the overarching discourse on mental illness, providing a multi-layered narrative experience.

Eternal Beauty sets a bold filmmaking benchmark on how mental illness narratives should be explored. It respects Jane's experience entirely, neither attempting to cure her nor using her struggles for cheap laughs. While humor is infused into multiple scenes, it's tastefully done and humanizes the mental health experience rather than mocking it. The film carries a vein of dark comedy throughout without detracting from its more serious undercurrents.

Not to be discounted is the magnificent work of the film's cinematography, embodied by Kit Fraser. The film’s visuals play around with color schemes and lighting, with scenes bathed in pastel hues or sharp, contrasting colors. These choices resonate with Jane's current mental state, as a literal representation of her seeing the world through a different lens. The score, deliciously crafted by Michael Price, has a similar effect, working to establish the atmosphere in accordance with Jane's experience of reality, drawing us further into her world.

The movie dares to provoke empathetic introspection within the audience by allowing them to experience the world from Jane's perspective. Dialogue is visually represented at times, and some scenes are repeated with different outcomes, alluding to the fracturing memory that sometimes associates with schizophrenia. Roberts’s sensitive and empathetic approach toward the depiction of mental health challenges also packs the movie with emotional depth.

Hawkins’s performance as Jane is the crowning glory of Eternal Beauty. She brings depth and truth to the character, making Jane not just a subject of sympathy, but also a figure of resilience. The skillful execution of Jane's character finely straddles the line between reality and hallucination, highlighting the real struggle of living with a mental disorder while standing tall throughout it all.

In conclusion, Eternal Beauty is an audacious and exceptional cinematic illustration of mental illness viewed from the eyes of the person living with it. It gives room for humor, mystery, love, and loss — all components of a thoroughly human existence. It's a film that showcases the vibrancy in the 'unconventional' ways of living while also daring to question what the rest of us consider 'normality'.