There is a catharsis for both audience and artist in the films we not only view and create but experience. Those artists who find the inspiration and strength in their own stories bring a unique vulnerability to its core, an undeniable truth constantly ringing at its center. For Nadine Crocker‘s Continue, nothing could be more true. A raw depiction of a young woman’s suicide attempt and its inevitable fallout will shake you at your core, bringing vulnerability to its every performance and narrative structure. Continue grabs hold of you from its chaotic and visually abrasive opening, delivering one of the rawest, most intense, and hypnotic looks at not only suicide but the constant struggle to fight for survival that cinema has seen. Though viewers should bare warning, this film can be triggering.
The Chaos of the Mind
Knowing the synopsis of Continue going in, it feels off-kilter as its opening title card reads “based on true events”. As we leave these opening words, a breath of truth gives an even deeper framework to the experience about to be depicted, the camera opening on a broken lamp on the floor. We as viewers are now intruders, front and center on a young woman’s deepest and darkest moments. As we watch her stare at her reflection in a broken mirror, we are given a moment to take in the room around her. In disarray, our questions of what happened are quickly answered as she begins shattering objects, the broken mirror, and broken objects around her speaking to the extent and length of time of her breakdown.
Viewers are immediately plunged into a chaotic editing style, bringing us to various snippets of Dean as her pain quickly engulfs her. The filming style and editing speak to the chaos within her head, the overwhelming thoughts and emotions spiraling out of control. It is powerful as it is unnerving, the entirety of it culminating in her ex-boyfriend (Anthony Caravella) stopping by the apartment and finding her bleeding out on the bathroom floor. As she is raced to the hospital, there is a quietness that settles in as Crocker‘s voice is heard, “are you watching? This is the moment it all ends… because of what I did.”
It is an effective opening, one that demands your attention – a demand viewers will not even think of defying.
As Dean (Nadine Crocker) awakens in the hospital, there is a silence that falls on the film. It’s as if the celluloid itself stops to take a deep breath from the whirlwind footage it has just captured. It sets a deep contrast to the film, as this will not be the only time Continue will use a filming style similar to the opening throughout its runtime. This quietness that settles in speaks to the unraveled mind, the noise and chaos of thoughts reaching their breaking point, but not without their moments of tranquility to contrast them. As Dean is taken involuntarily to a mental hospital for further evaluation and treatment, Continue begins to slow down in its filming, the days, minutes, hours seemingly dragging, Dean’s new surroundings providing little respite from the watching eyes of others – including us.
Viewers may find themselves wondering how Dean ended up this way, looking for the answers as to what started her spiral. And while Continue delivers the superficial reasons early on through the break-up of a boyfriend, it is not content with just those answers, giving Dean the depth and understanding that many will find, even in the smallest bits, they can relate to. As the film continues, and Dean embraces help in the form of treatment, unconditional love, and friendship, viewers are given snippets into the chaos that consumes her and the tragedy she finds herself defined by. Continue is clever in not spelling it out to the audience, delivering the back story in a conversation alone, rather the imagery of Dean’s past is unsettling enough to provide not only understanding but compassion and empathy.
Artistic Catharsis
Continue is raw, vulnerable, and unafraid to embrace its committed depiction of mental illness. At its core, and the true reason for its success is in its writer, director, and star Nadine Crocker. Many may recognize her for her role in CW’s Supergirl, but audiences will come to know her for Continue. Based on her own life, Crocker infuses truth into every fiber of the film, her performance undeniably brilliant. Her performance and look may garner some comparisons to Angelina Jolie‘s Lisa from Girl, Interrupted, but this role is uniquely her own. From the moment the film opens, she is hypnotic, your heartbreaking for her Dean as the chaos ends in her suicide attempt, yet overjoyed as she works to stay alive. This is a character that grows, an undeniable strength at the core a testament to Crocker‘s ability to expose herself through her art.
Yet, it is not only in the performance that one finds strength of Crocker. Continue is well structured and paced out. As the film progresses, there is a sense of it not only being an examination of mental health but a cathartic experience for its creator. And beyond that, a love letter to those who may have helped to support her along her own journey. There is a gentle caress around the characters that revolve around Dean, and while they are not all given the same depth, they each have their deep meaning to Dean. They each have their own struggles, speaking to a community and solidarity of broken hearts and mental support, but they each give the other something desperately missing.
Conclusion
Continue goes beyond the linear narrative structure of expectations, embracing an almost Sliding Doors parallelism of Dean’s story. It is a poignant and vital direction Continue takes its viewers, uncompromising and unafraid to take you to the heart of suicide and survival. It is a hard film to watch at times, its nature potentially triggering, yet it is a film that desperately needs to be seen. Vital, raw and vulnerable, Nadine Crocker‘s Continue is a bit of catharsis you didn’t know you needed.
Continue screened at the Cinejoy Film Festival on April 3, 2022.
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