reviews

A Mother in Shades of Gray, Love, Schizophrenia and All
NEW YORK TIMES REVIEW
By Susan Stewart

Nov. 7, 2006

Daughters who think they have problems with their mothers should take a hint
from out of the shadow, a documentary being shown tomorrow evening on
WNET/13. The filmmaker, Susan Smiley, considers it a good day when she
springs her schizophrenic mother from the psychiatric ward and takes her to
Wal-Mart.

Everything is relative in shadow, and everything is about relatives. Its major
players include Ms. Smiley and her sister, Christine Kotulski (known as Tina
here), both scarred by their mother's illness. The women's father, cousin,
nieces and nephews weigh in on the experience of growing up – and putting
up – with the delusions and complications of schizophrenia. All are articulate
and full of feeling.

But the film's star is its subject: Millie Smiley, a beautiful, battle-worn
woman whose ease before her daughter's camera gives shadow grace
and honesty. A true heroine, the elder Ms. Smiley undergoes a transformation,
metamorphosing from a minimally functioning mental patient into a loving
grandmother. For all their tribulations, the Smileys have something to
smile about.

When Millie Smiley first appears on camera, she is a patient in an Illinois state
mental hospital and so detached from reality that she thinks she is there
because she has run out of money. As we get to know her, through her talk
about "noise pollution" and a suicide attempt ("blood everywhere"), we also
meet, via home movies, her younger self, a gorgeous blonde who fell apart
after her first daughter was born.

"I said, 'My God, what am I dealing with here?' " remembers her former
husband, Alan, who left his wife and daughters so he could "survive."

A simplistic approach would cast this man as a villain, but shadow sees
shades of gray. Mr. Smiley was an absent but caring father, and in the end
he and his second wife welcome Millie Smiley into their family.

The villain of shadow is the vast and anonymous system that shuttles
this woman from one psychiatrist to another without continuity of care or
consistency in medications. Health care is an easy target, and shadow
is stronger when it's not tilting at institutional windmills.

At one point, Ms. Smiley and Ms. Kotulski argue about the ethics of lying to
their mother. While Ms. Smiley waxes on about a "crisis of conscience," Ms.
Kotulski turns pragmatic. Suddenly their mother's paranoia seems justified.
The scene is more disturbing than any contrived controversy on reality television.

By film's end, Millie Smiley is making a life for herself: limited by our standards,
wondrous by hers. Beaming over things most of us take for granted – a
grandchild's craft, "delicious" fast food – she is an object lesson in resilience
and gratitude. shadow is a valentine to her, and a heartening one.