Tag Archives: Matt Damon

Apr 24

“We Bought a Zoo”: Zoo Therapy For a Grieving Widower

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Did I think “schmaltzy” at least once or twice while watching We Bought a Zoo on the plane ride home from my vacation? Yup.

Did I also feel things that mattered even more times than that? Yup again.

Whereas Richard Corliss at Time calls We Bought a Zoo “pure cornography,” Michael Phillips of the Chicago Tribune differs. He points out that Matt Damon, as lead character Benjamin Mee, is largely responsible for keeping that very same element in check. “Damon, thank the family-friendly-movie gods, really knows how to hold his head above the corn,” Phillips says.

The film is based on a true story about a grieving widower with two kids to raise. Fourteen-year-old angry, sullen Dylan is acting out at school, while seven-year-old adorable Rosie shows signs of becoming overly self-sufficient and parentified in the wake of her mom’s loss.

Benjamin yearns so much to get to a better space emotionally for himself and his kids that he abruptly quits his job and makes a questionable move to a different physical space—a house with a zoo that happens to be in just as much need of repair as each of their hearts.

Along with the purchase of the zoo grounds comes its motley crew—not the least important of which is zookeeper Kelly, played by Scarlett Johansson. Like many who choose work that involves caring for animals, she comes across as being more concerned with their well-being than with people’s—or even her own.

Time for the trailer:

Can you can immediately see where it’s all going? Most assuredly. As James Berardinelli, ReelViews, notes, however: “The general sense of blandness and predictability that marks the story’s progression does not damage its emotional strengths. We feel for these characters and, because we care about them, we yearn for the highs the film ultimately delivers.”

Oct 21

Therapist Boundaries (Violence): Two Movies

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Do a Google search about therapist boundaries, specifically therapists and violence, and you’ll find plenty about clients attending therapy for being violent.

But can you find any reliable info about therapists being violent? Against their clients? No? Do we have to (misguidedly) look to the movies for such things?

I. Good Will Hunting

Will (Matt Damon) in the movie Good Will Hunting (1997) is one character who has to attend therapy after an episode of violence. Finding the right shrink for Will, who trusts no one who tries to help him, turns out to be no easy feat. Well, maybe the less traditional, more directive kind of therapist we eventually find in Sean Maguire (Robin Williams) will fill the bill.

But before Will gets anywhere close to the meaningful catharsis the film wants him to have, he has to put Maguire through the usual hoops, in one instance meanly and provocatively maligning Maguire’s dead wife. What follows is this disturbing scene involving terrible therapist boundaries:

Lesson #1 (You Wouldn’t Pick Up From The Movies): It’s never okay to choke a client. (Or harm a client in any way.) (Unless, of course, in self-defense.) Even if the client then backs off and actually moves on to have one particular wowie-zowie life-changing therapy session.

JC Schildbach, LMHC, RespecttheBlankie.com: “Despite what the filmmakers would have us believe, this is not a valid technique for establishing rapport or ensuring appropriate transference with clients who have suffered abuse–even when therapist and client are both from south Boston and the client just shit-talked the therapist’s dead wife.”

II. What About Bob?

Next up, there’s actually worse things a shrink can do. In the film What About Bob? (1991), the psychiatrist played by Richard Dreyfuss goes nuts himself dealing with Bob (Bill Murray), his dependent client who follows him, uninvited of course, on vacation.

Lesson #2 (You Might Not Pick Up From the Movies): Even unsuccessful attempts at killing one’s (annoying) clients are not allowed.

Well, at least Leo Marvin’s “death therapy” doesn’t work, and while there’s an unhappy ending in store for him—catatonia and psychiatric hospitalization—there’s a happy ending for Bob, who marries Lily,  becoming Leo’s brother-in-law. And there’s more: We find out in the Epilogue that Bob goes on to get his psychology degree and to write the bestselling Death Therapy.