If you're coming to this film to learn something about depression, forget it: you won't learn anything except how not to write a screenplay on the subject. I understand the intent was to show how severe depression can turn an average person into a complete wreck, but the result is the most one-dimensional character I've ever seen in a Hollywood feature... no small feat. Christina Ricci as Elizabeth spends the entirety of this film screaming at the top of her lungs, viciously insulting someone, bursting into tears or some combination of the three (the only exceptions being some quiet sulking at the beginning and end). There is not the slightest hint of what she might be like WITHOUT depression... not the faintest glimmer of any other aspects of her personality... she just screams. At one point, her roommate tells her, "Lizzie, you're such a fun person to be around when you're not being depressed," and my reaction was, "She IS?" It seemed odd that the writers would include this comment without giving us any examples, but this script is a lesson in incompetence. It has no discernible structure or flow at all; instead, it consists of a series of awkwardly strung-together scenes of Lizzie screaming, then ends. Character development? No... Scenes of her everyday existence, i.e. going to classes, that might possibly be important details? No... Screaming at maximum volume? CHECK. It's not quite enough, I'm afraid. 1/10.
Review of Prozac Nation
