‘Horse Girl’ and the Unyielding Reality of Mental Illness
Trigger Warning: mention of suicide and discussion of schizophrenia
Despite what its title suggests, Horse Girl is no quirky indie flick to kick back to, and chuckle at. Co-written between Alison Brie and Jeff Baena, this poignant yet mind-bending film combines elements of the sci-fi and thriller genres, to explore the onset of severe mental illness in protagonist Sarah (played by Brie herself), a socially-clumsy twenty-something who starts to believe that she is getting regularly abducted by aliens, and that she is actually the clone of her late grandmother.
The film begins by showing us Sarah’s humble amusements; she works at a craft store where her co-worker Joan (Molly Shannon) is her closest confidante, she likes to visit her childhood horse, Willow, and spends her evenings winding down to her favorite supernatural crime drama, Purgatory. We feel immediately sympathetic towards our misunderstood and socially isolated protagonist, which leads us into a bait-and-switch whereby our sympathy is rendered completely irrelevant. As Sarah’s inner world begins to fall apart and unexplainable events unfold, the viewer becomes just as discombobulated as her, about what is and isn’t real.
Baena’s direction definitely hints that something is off from the outset of the film; the eerily gradual zoom-ins of the opening scenes prepare us for events far more ominous than the mere dallyings of our horse girl’s mundane life. But there is a sharp, unsettling turn on the night of Sarah’s birthday that lets us see beyond the outside appearances of her behaviour, and through her own perspective. Dizzied by drink, Sarah’s head hits the pillow and she becomes conscious again in a white space totally separate to the world of the film so far; this is the recurring setting of an alien ship to which she keeps getting summoned in her sleep.
As similarly mystifying and reality-bending events escalate, we realise that Sarah’s social clumsiness and boundary-pushing tendencies, (like trying to convince her first-date to dig up her mother from her grave, or chasing a plumber who she thinks must remember her from her dreams), are the manifestations of crippling mental health issues that have long plagued her family. In dialogue with her step-dad Gary and later her therapist at the mental institution, we learn of her grandmother’s “talking to the walls”, and her mother’s suicidal state that led to her death just a year ago.
Instead of emphasizing that her experiences are simply the result of her genetic illness, though, Brie allows room for the speculation that they are actually based in reality, and that she is just terribly mistaken by those around her. By the end of the film, when Sarah has been checked in to the mental facility by her co-worker Joan, she is roomed with another girl that she has seen in her dreams of alien abduction. The girl recognises the same “white space” and the “ramp over the ocean” in which the aliens supposedly operate on their captees, suggesting that those scenes might not have been just a part of Sarah’s delusions.
The sci-fi, alien-abduction elements of the film are effective ways in which Brie conveys the isolating experience of severe mental illness. The hostile environment surrounding our protagonist - the growing intolerance of her housemate Nikki (Debby Ryan) and her horse’s new keepers at the stable - clearly alienates her more deeply into the tortured landscape of her mind. At no point revealing Sarah’s actual diagnosis, Brie’s film is larger than labels, seeking to privilege the actual, internal experience of mental suffering. Although she has spoken openly about her family’s history with paranoid schizophrenia and depression, and voiced her fears about her own psychological state, the film avoids classifications and instead offers a raw portrayal of how unpleasant, disturbing and confusing, mental illness can become for those experiencing it.
It’s a testament to Brie’s authentic story-writing that Sarah becomes increasingly difficult to sympathise with by the end of the film, at the peak of her mental deterioration. The writer’s message isn’t that we should simply de-stigmatize mental illness, but that we should see it from a multifaceted angle that confronts the brutal ‘reality’ that many face. The film tests whether we can retain our compassion for Sarah through the most troubling of her behaviours, such as proclaiming to her housemates how necessary it is that she fills the flat with sage for protection from the thought-control of the God of technology. Furthermore, the film forces us to recognise how psychological turmoil can cause one’s life to crumble in devastating ways that aren’t obviously identifiable from the outside.
Horse Girl has been often criticized for validating the reality of its paranormal elements. The ultimate scene shows Sarah readily lying down on the ground in her grandma’s dress - an act of surrender to her family’s history of illness. Her body begins to hover towards a UFO above, and then she is gone. Writer for The Guardian, Adrian Horton writes; “It’s unclear, by the end, what is a lucid dream and what is her awake state; the film seems to take the concerning position that madness is the natural end point”, concluding that, “The ambition of [Horse Girl] ultimately gets the better of it, turning what could be a dark but insightful depiction on signs missed in a mental health crisis into an agreement on one’s madness - a game of what’s real, and what’s not that feels unsettling to play.” New York Times writer Natalia Winkerman writes, in a similar vein, that; “[t]he more time we spend inside her visions, the more we are invited to enable her, to shrug off our worry in favour of an absorbing paranormal mystery.”
These critiques may hold up at first-watch, but Brie has admitted to ever so cleverly speckling the film with easter eggs that open it up to multiple interpretations. She even states that her and Baena’s own takes on what the truth is, differ from each other; Brie reveals only a single hint about the time-loops which are mentioned in the film. Horse Girl’s surreal aspects are certainly compelling ways in which Brie probes the question of “What is real?”, and the more important question, missed by the aforementioned critics; “Who is to deny one reality over another?”
There is a moving scene in which Sarah’s therapist, ever so sincerely trying to help, remarks; “I believe that you’re telling me your truth, and that what you’re experiencing feels 100% real to you.” It seems that this is exactly what the film is trying to say. Despite the whimsical nature of Sarah’s pursuits, we are convinced of their importance and realise that distinguishing between what is real and what is not is not our job. It might be the sufferer’s job - a necessary job, and a vital step towards recovery - but who are we, to dictate the boundaries of another person’s reality?
Horse Girl is no mere campaign for mental health awareness; rather putting forth its own brutal account of how ruinous mental illness can be. The film also points in the direction of our own roles, (as the friend, the co-worker, the love-interest), to somebody who could rely more on our unwavering support than any desperate attempts to ‘work them out’, or ‘fix’ them. Alison Brie’s troubling yet magnetic psychodrama provides a refreshingly authentic, and ruthlessly honest take on the unyielding reality of mental suffering.
Sources:
Adrian Horton, ‘Horse Girl review - Alison Brie shines in frustrating Netflix psychodrama’, Guardian, February 7 2020.
Rachel Handler, ‘Alison Brie Based Horse Girl On Her Own Mental Health History’, Vulture, February 7 2020.
Natalia Winkerman, ‘‘Horse Girl’ Review: Facing an Emotionally Taxing World’, New York Times, February 6 2020.