Cinema Therapy — Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D.

Non-Fiction

Synopsis:
Set against the backdrop of today’s dog-eat-dog Parisian publishing world, Non-Fiction, written and directed by Olivier Assayas, follows the chaotic, fast-track lives of two sophisticated and affluent couples, Alain (Guillaume Canet), a publishing house editor and his wife Selena (Juliette Binoche), the star of a popular TV series, and a bohemian author, Léonard (Vincent Macaigne)―who is having an affair with Selena―and Léonard’s wife, Valerie (Nora Hamzawi), the devoted assistant of a socialist politician who gets caught up in a political scandal. Alain’s publishing house publishes Léonard’s novels, which are roughly disguised accounts of his own erotic adventures including his affair with Alain’s wife, Selena. Alain, who can argue three sides of any question, drifts into an affair with Laure (Christa Théret), a young digital disrupter whose know-how threatens to shake up the world of publishing.

The couples’ incessant, fast-paced tête-à-tête focuses on the impact of digital technology on media, entertainment, the arts, literature, politics, and even private life where there are tectonic shifts from privacy to the radical transparency of social media and blogs. Their conversation take place in bars, restaurants, cafes, at informal dinners, hasty breakfasts, dinner parties, and affairs, which make-up the bulk of pillow talk discourse. Each character has a professional stake in the enormous technical changes that have already happened or are just about to happen. Their jobs, like their sexual partners, are in flux.

Psychological Implications
While the term “non-fiction” refers to writings based on real events and facts, the characters in Non-Fiction lead double lives. They lack personal and professional boundaries, push the limits as long as they don’t get caught, justify their choices, and develop strategies to meet their personal and professional challenges with apparent self-assurance. At the same time, they are surrounded by a social and political climate of public wrongdoing. Non-Fiction uses the camera lens to capture the intense drive towards success in the publishing world. It also exposes the tenacity, spirit, and conflicting desires of an ever-changing kaleidoscope of the characters’ world and their emotional neediness. Leonard’s strategy to ward off facing an author’s night kiss of oblivion is to breach confidentiality and expose his erotic affairs, then pay no mind to the pain he causes his partners. Alain, worldly, intelligent, and sophisticated, uses the context of his work setting as a playground to troll for another dance partner. Selena, clearly a survivor, shelves her upset by moving into a long-term affair with Leonard and rather than wrestle with the feelings of Leonard’s betrayal, Valeria becomes a workhorse to a political misfit. In the end, when Valeria announces to Leonard that she is pregnant with his child, you don’t get the feeling like she’s holding a grudge!

Behind the “French literary life” veneer is dysfunction. The characters lack emotional intimacy in their non-monogamous, ever-changing relationships, and there’s an absence of political and family values. As the characters get increasingly caught up in dealing with the challenges, uncertainties, and consequences of their personal romances and ever-changing professional lives, the more dysfunctional they seem to get. The therapeutic environment is about listening to the psychic reality of the patient. Thus, we are driven by having to view that reality different from our own version of it. From a therapist’s perspective, listening as the characters try to justify his or her strategies to deal with their emotionally topsy-turvy world, we can sense their wounds and unmet needs. Does that mean we need to move past our own limited, if not judgmental, views of how others choose to live their lives? Can we benefit by gaining a different, perhaps less idealized, perspective? Actually, Non-Fiction seems to encourage us, the viewers, to confront and reflect on our own lives and values leading us to make changes so that our lives will become more worthwhile. “But some things do not change,” someone states. What holds value for us? What is true for us?

Even in an unstable, confusing world, while some things change, other things remain the same. That is one of the film’s main points. Change will keep on happening. It’s what we choose to do with that fact that counts.

Charlyne Gelt, Ph.D. (PSY22909) is a clinical psychologist who practices in Encino. She leads Women's Empowerment Groups that help women learn the tools to move beyond self-destructive relationship patterns. She may be reached at 818.501.4123 or cgelt@earthlink.net. Her office address is 16055 Ventura Blvd. #1129 Encino, CA 91436.