{"id":45328,"date":"2018-10-01T10:00:41","date_gmt":"2018-10-01T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/25yearslatersite.com\/?p=45328"},"modified":"2023-07-07T16:00:42","modified_gmt":"2023-07-07T20:00:42","slug":"the-pattern-is-the-pattern-sentiment-as-therapy-in-maniac","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tvobsessive.com\/2018\/10\/01\/the-pattern-is-the-pattern-sentiment-as-therapy-in-maniac\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018The pattern is the pattern\u2019: Sentiment as therapy in Netflix’s Maniac"},"content":{"rendered":"
Owen Milgrim (Jonah Hill) has schizophrenia, and one effect of that is seeing a non-existent brother. This brother assures him that he\u2019s meant for greatness, and that he\u2019s \u201cgoing to save the world,” if only Owen could trust him. To be sure, Netflix\u2019s <\/span>Maniac <\/i><\/span>portrays <\/a>a simplistic, cartoonish version of a complicated disorder, but that\u2019s because executive producer Cary Joji Fukunaga (the director of <\/span>True Detective<\/a><\/i><\/span> season 1, and the newly hired director of the latest James Bond film) isn\u2019t all that interested in the nuances of mental illness. Instead, Fukunaga uses it to make wider points about the way we interact with capitalism; about attempts to \u2018cure\u2019 ourselves, and what that really means.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Annie Landsburg is grieving. She\u2019s depressed and angry. She\u2019s lost her sister, the one person who she felt could handle her ugliness; the one person who understood her. She volunteers for the drug trial at the centre of the series (UPL: a drug that supposedly cures every mental illness in the world and leaves you with nothing but feelings of bliss) because she\u2019s addicted to the rush of the as-yet unsafe drug. This drug functions in three stages, split into three pills. Annie is addicted to the first stage, pill A, which forces the user to experience their \u201ccore trauma\u201d (in Annie\u2019s case, the death of her sister) as though it\u2019s happening right then and there. She loves it, despite it forcing her to relive the worst day of her life, because she can see her sister again, and she can experience that soul-crushing guilt and shame she feels she deserves over and over again, without having to do the work to address that part of the trauma. Fukunaga’s treatment of mental illness may not be subtle, but he understands self-destruction, and the unhealthy coping mechanisms we adopt just to make it through the day.<\/span><\/p>\n These are the circumstances under which Annie and Owen meet at the drug trial—they are intensely vulnerable, isolated, and desperate for a solution to all their problems. Owen needs a way out of testifying for his asshole brother, who is implied to have done something horrible to a woman, and Annie just wants that next hit of pill A. They\u2019re bonded by their experiences early on, but it is when they move on to pill B that the connection between the two solidifies. The pill, as intended, causes them to hallucinate parallel lives, ones that faintly echo themes, ideas, and people from their own world, without it being overtly obvious what the connection is. But Owen and Annie experience this together. It\u2019s a pattern—in the lives that they experience when under the influence of the drug, they are intimately connected. In one life they\u2019re a married couple with a family, in another they are spies (Jonah Hill speaking in an \u2018Icelandic\u2019 accent that makes me laugh every time I think about it), in another, they are thieves—separated but still almost-in-love, caught in a cycle of betraying each other for the thrill of it. Owen\u2019s not-real brother tells him \u201cthe pattern is the pattern”: an excuse, if there ever was one, to project whatever the audience (or indeed the characters) want onto this connection. It\u2019s not necessarily romantic, but it is, quite literally, soul-deep; soulmates bound entirely by accident. What a wonderful fan-fiction trope that is making its way to mainstream television. I love it. <\/span><\/p>\n It also stands in total contrast to the lack of connection experienced by Owen and Annie in the world outside the trial. The world of <\/span>Maniac<\/i><\/span> is similar to our own, but there are some differences. There is true Artificial Intelligence, the technology has a distinctively 80s feel that disorientates the viewer, and people can supplement their income with \u2018Ad buddies.’ This last part is loosely defined, but essentially involves people with briefcases appearing beside you to read advertisements out loud in exchange for money. You can also rent a friend, a husband for a grieving family, whatever you need: the \u2018gig economy\u2019 taken to its most absurd conclusion. It all tells of a world where the connections between people are commodified. Owen is implied to be tempted by the possibility of renting a family, renting a life, before entering the drug trial, and Annie uses Ad buddies, rents friends, and does whatever she needs to do to make her rent. The A pill isn\u2019t cheap, after all. It\u2019s an easy way out of their loneliness, so why should they not give in to this capitalist fantasy? That <\/span>Maniac<\/i><\/span> chooses to make this point—the fantasies experienced under the influence of the drug trial are more real, more authentic, than relationships built on capitalist exchanges in the outside world—emphasises the importance of what Annie and Owen experience together. It\u2019s figured as genuine, rare, and therefore essential.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n But that’s not all. Annie admits in the final episode (to a rented friend she is pretending is Owen, ironically) that it’s “really hard to actually connect with somebody,” and that makes it all the more important to hang on to those connections. <\/span>The difficulty of maintaining a true relationship in the world is emphasised. It takes sustained effort to have an authentic connection with another person, and I do believe that’s true to life. It’s not just that fate draws these two damaged people together, and that’s the end of it. <\/span>Maniac<\/em><\/span> recognises that it’s not that easy; Annie and Owen have to choose to find and help each other, repeatedly. Owen does this in the fantasies, when he becomes aware that he’s under the influence of the drug, and transforms into a hawk (“Annie, I’m a hawk!” he shouts with glee) to go find Annie in her own, separate fantasy life, and Annie parallels that choice in the outside world, finding Owen in an in-patient facility, with him convinced that she was either a delusion, or, potentially worse, real and unwilling to see him outside of the trial. She reassures him that she\u2019s real, tells him that he may well need to be medicated, but he also needs her in the same way that she needs him, so they escape together. As an aside, I have to express how relieved I was that the show didn\u2019t try to suggest Owen didn\u2019t need medical treatment—my own life has been made much easier since becoming properly medicated, and the suggestion often seen in pop culture that medication is a sign of weakness, or muting part of your personality, is disturbing and destructive. If <\/span>Maniac<\/i><\/span> has a central thesis for this story line, it isn\u2019t that Owen doesn\u2019t need help, or treatment, but rather that he doesn\u2019t need to be alone. <\/span><\/p>\n