Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian

Several accomplished cast members (winners of International awards, including previous Oscar win by title character) promised a compelling true story, but didn't quite deliver. - Set in Post WWII rural Kansas, the title character is a Native American who is a war veteran with chronic inexplicable painful episodes suggesting brain injuries. Because the local VA Hospital is puzzled by Jimmy's unique condition, a French psychoanalyst (a Freudian scholar) stuck in New York City due to his questionable legal residence and work status, is sent for to assist in figuring this case out. - Jimmy grows to trust this Frenchman and eventually confides the darkest memories that had troubled him from childhood on.

Although this story is based on actual events, I don't find it particularly compelling. There could be many such "true stories" of mental patients told, all with equally moving details and outcomes. The one detail that impressed me was how prejudices against Native Americans were still part of daily life in America, but how simultaneously individuals began to demand respect for minorities, rejecting coded racism. A nurse talking down to Jimmy saying "you can paint the town red" was clearly racist and patronizing. In one scene Jimmy corrected a military official about being properly addressed "My name isn't Chief, it's Jimmy, so you call me Jimmy!". At another point the French psychoanalyst had an outburst and demanded that his patient's medical care be equal to that of any white man. Such moments show the progress in the fight for equality, with a long way to go. For 1948 standards, however, a remarkable progress nonetheless.

The few bright moments in this film don't rationalize the running time of almost 2 hours. Slow and drawn out. At the end of the film, I was still looking for more of a point than was delivered.

An intellectual labor of love in which the director tries to recreate the psychotherapeutic relationship between a French psychoanalyst (in reality a Hungarian-German Jew who converted to Christianity) and a Blackfoot Indian vet suffering from inexplicable symptoms in the late 1940s in a VA hospital in Topeka, Kansas.

Played by Benicio del Toro (who is Puerto Rican) and Mathieu Almaric (who is half-French half-Polish Jewish), the film drags at times but does delve into some interesting psychological (although of course it goes *much* more seamlessly/painlessly than most analyses in reality).

Almaric's character wins over Del Toro's with his initial knowledge of Native American cultures (actually Mojave but there are parallels to the Blackfoot). From there he tries to synthesize his anthropological knowledge with what seem to be a pretty standard fare of sexualized Freudian clichés (witnessing the primal scene, explicit discussions of vaginas (which I thought Del Toro's character spoke about far too easily for the mores of that day and age)).

The relationship between the two men are supposed to be a life-changing event but I felt the film fell a little short in depicting that reality (also a film review (for which I know the director is not responsible) described their friendship as resulting from their both being outsiders, but Almaric's character never reveals his true background (his lover mentions at one point the fact that he changed his name but that is it, perhaps there were other scenes that didn't make it past the editor (I went to the premiere in NYC with the director and main actors and they said there are a lot of scenes that got cut)).

In the latter part of the movie there are strong hints that Jimmy's (Del Toro's character) headaches, fits of rage and alcoholic binges are the result of systematic sociopolitical mistreatment of native Americans but the subject is only strongly hinted at, not really discussed explicitly by Jimmy in any deep or meaningful way. This was to me perhaps more interesting than the anthropological Freudianism of the first 90 minutes of the film, but the director was trying to adhere to a book on the subject and real-life events (psychology back then was even more grossly unaware of psychopolitical factors compared to now).

Perhaps subtly discourages the notion that Jimmy is suffering from PTSD (a diagnosis which did not exist at the time, but the phrase "shell shock" is not used either) because he never saw combat or killed anyone (he was involved in mine-clearing operations after the German retreat). Also interesting insofar as his injury was to his head, thus perhaps implicitly challenging the often presumed relationship nowadays in vets between TBI (traumatic brain injury) and PTSD? (Then again the director was following real-life events so I don't know his intentionality.)

A worthwhile film but a little odd insofar as it (to me) underemphasizes the ethnocultural forces in the characters in favor of a "special friendship" (in a universalized way) despite the fact that it is the decultured nature of American psychiatry which was at the root of doctors' inability to help Jimmy in the first place. Also couldn't stand the way a couple of actors (thinking of Almaric and Joseph Cross specifically) who think that acting means being as anxious and/or intense as possible in every scene.

P.S. The film does drag a bit (114 minutes) (I'm not someone who normally complains about "art-house" films with slower (French) pacing either.)

JIMMY P. is structurally a mess. Director Arnaud Desplechin is never quite sure what he wants the film to say: whether it comments on the status of Native Indians in postwar Amerıca; the suspicious status of much activity going under the name of psychology; life in institutions based on locking people up and asking questions later; or asking us to reflect on the fine dividing line between madness and sanity.

The plot is a straightforward one: Jimmy Picard (Benicio Del Toro), a Native Indian veteran of World War II, suffers from terrible headaches. Confined to an institution, he comes under the care of maverick psychologist Georges Devereux (Benicio Del Toro), who nurses Picard back to health through a series of insistent questions while probing deeply into his sexual past. There is only one snag: Devereux's background is equally shady; he might or might not be a practicing psychiatrist, and he himself undergoes therapy at the end of the film.

Shot in atmospheric colorlessness, the film recreates a world where anyone differing from racial or psychological norms - as constructed by whites - is automatically identified as deviant, and hence not worth treating. It is only due to Devereux's persistence that Picard recovers at all; and even then, the psychiatrist has to browbeat the institution's director Dr. Menninger (Larry Pine) into agreement.

The actual process of recovery is perfunctorily handled; while the racial themes become lost in a convoluted subplot involving Devereux's friend Madeleine (Gina McKee), Howard Shore's musical score is unnecessarily intrusive, its syrupy fat chords directing attention away from Picard's soliloquy describing his mental state, almost as if director Desplechin was under the impression that viewers could not concentrate on words alone.

The ending is equally unsatisfactory, as we have no idea what will happen to Picard, once released from the institution. He vows to see his family, but the potential traumas presented by the workaday world after such a long time spent in confinement are simply left unexplored. In many ways JIMMY P. is something of a wasted opportunity to make a comment on discrimination and its consequences in America's past.

The visuals in Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian are almost, almost worth the price of admission. The opening scene of the film beautifully articulates setting and irony by showing the grassy plains of America while Native American flute music is played in the backdrop. It's a comforting, soft opening to a film that is erected predominately off of complex discussion and ideology.

The film stars Benicio Del Toro in a role he clearly embraced and enjoyed, playing Jimmy Picard, a Blackfoot Indian, who has returned from war with seriously debilitating symptoms, most specifically, a crippling headache. Jimmy is placed under the care of George Devereux (Mathieu Amalric), a real-life French doctor and anthropologist, who specializes in ethnology and psychoanalysis. The two meet together and form a quaint bond between their lengthy discussions about Native American history and culture, stemming from Devereux's desire to learn about the culture, as an anthropologist often does and Jimmy's checkered past, which involves troubled love and a teenage daughter that another man is raising.

With the right directorial methods and smooth, engaging writing, Jimmy P. could easily be a film that one can effortlessly sink into, investing in its characters and learning a thing or two about psychological methods. It just so happens that my semester of high school psychology delved into Freudian ideas and psychoanalysis quite extensively, both principles are based on three key ideas: the inner conscious and unconscious act as dueling forces in the mind, the discussion and population of defense mechanisms in order for people to cope or estrange themselves from their past, and the idea that dreaming means more than disjointed shows that play in your head while you sleep.

Making a film centered around often complex and occasionally droning material, especially when that film is about the founding days of a division in psychology, is unbelievably challenging, so based on that, it's surprising to say Jimmy P. succeeds as well as it does. French director and co-writer Arnaud Desplechin (who wrote the film with Julie Peyr and Kent Jones, respectively) does all he can to make the film as absorbing as possible, and for the first hour or so, his efforts are effective, as we watch Jimmy and Devereux invest in some great conversational banter that is geared more towards cultural relativism than it is in trying to structure cheap and expected payoffs. However, the film runs out of gas when you realize just how stiff and frequently dull the material gets. Perhaps it really is no fault of the trio of writers, nor Desplechin himself, but the fact that the ideas presented in the film are difficult to make engaging on an entertainment level.

Jimmy P: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian works for a little while because it's interesting to see how a significant subsector of psychology was born by a doctor who was clearly interested in learning about different walks of life and the makeup of cultures and people of groups he didn't belong to. Amalric embodies the mindset of an anthropologist/psychologist quite nicely here, effectively making for a character we can appreciate. However, the stiffness of the film catches up to it, with the film's discussions in its second and third act becoming greatly long-winded and the entire project slowly running out of steam before reaching the conclusion. Rather than rewarding and captivating, the ending comes off a long-awaited conclusion to a film that was so close to making a film about psychology absorbing for two hours.

Starring: Benicio Del Toro and Mathieu Amalric. Directed by: Arnaud Desplechin.

"Jimmy P." is an unusual film for many reasons. Although the film's star Benicio Del Toro is a pretty hot commodity in films these days, this Oscar-winning actor decided to take a very different sort of part in this film. In the last year, for example, he's been in a couple HUGE Hollywood films--"Thor: The Dark World" and the recent mega-hit "Guardians of the Galaxy". But "Jimmy P." is a much smaller sort of film--one with very modest pretenses and which is not exactly the sort of film the average viewer would enjoy. My assumption is that he just liked the role and it offered him a good chance to act without all the special effects and eye candy of a typical film. Regardless, it is interesting and worth a look--particularly if you are interested in the history of psychotherapy.

When the film begins, a WWII vet, Jimmy Picard (Del Toro) has come to the VA hospital because of the intense pain he's been feeling. However, despite many, many tests, the doctors can find nothing physically wrong and eventually one of them suggests his problems might have a psychological basis. In a wise move, the psychologist at the hospital suggests they find a psychotherapist who has a background in anthropology so that they can address not only Jimmy's emotional problems but see this in the context of his American Indian heritage. In other words, perhaps there are problems specifically related to this ethnic background. So, the hospital goes searching for such a man and they enlist the help of a French therapist, Georges Devereaux (Mathieu Amalric). Much of the film consists of the therapy sessions between Devereaux and Jimmy and focuses on the insights that they learn and the progress he makes.

As far as the history of psychotherapy goes, this is a fascinating film. And, since I used to be a psychotherapist and teacher (teaching psychology among other subjects), I was familiar with the analytic bent of therapy in the 1940s and wasn't surprised at the way therapy was portrayed in the film. Its focus on sex, repression, free association and the like were BIG back then, though today this is not at all typical of counseling sessions which are now much more problem-centered and short-term in nature. Plus, today, most therapists believe that more than just sex is behind all our emotional problems. This is NOT a criticism at all--just an observation and to let you know that the style of the meetings between the Jimmy and Devereaux are not at all typical of what you'd find today. To me, this was pretty interesting--and, yes, I know for the average person this isn't exactly exciting stuff. What is pretty exciting, however, is the nice, gentle sort of acting you see here. Del Toro and the rest of the cast did a very nice job and the movie is an interesting slice of life movie. But, unfortunately, a lot of folks probably wouldn't rush to see this sort of realistic story as there aren't many 'exciting' portions to the film--just a decent little story.

Finally, Benicio Del Toro is a fine actor and he did a fine job in "Jimmy P."--but, I do wonder why the filmmakers didn't hire an actual American Indian to play this role instead of a Puerto Rican American? After all, there probably aren't many opportunities for members of various American tribes to act in films and this might have been a nice chance to give someone a chance to play the role intended for an American Indian. While no one would ever think of having a white person play a black in films these days, it's still surprising to see which actors often play Asians and American Indians in films. I also noticed that lots of supporting parts were played in Jimmy P. by American Indians--perhaps one of them might have been cast in the lead.