Pretty Good

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A man bikes to a construction site and tries to land a job. He is accepted on the job and he starts to work. The construction site is on the top of the roof of a wood framed house. This wood frame is like a skeleton. The site is very unique because it seems to be aligned with an airport runway meters ahead. As the aircraft descends, Mr. Jones feels excited and wants to be closer to the noise and the presence of the aircraft. In order to do this he climbs up onto the wood frame and attempts to get a little bit closer to the aircraft. He balances himself onto the top ledge of the house. When one of the other construction workers sees that Mr. Jones is climbing up on the top ledge of the house and walking to the front edge, this gets interpreted by the construction worker as being something that is highly dangerous and unsafe. A construction worker tries to bring Mr. Jones to safety by rescuing him.Mr. Jones does not seem to want to be rescued as he is happy standing on the edge and waiting for the aircraft to pass-by. In the meantime, the construction worker has since tied a rope around himself, followed Mr. Jones onto the unsafe ledge and followed him down the slim wood beam, while the aircraft zoomed overhead. The next scene, Mr. Jones is in restraints at a psychiatric hospital ward. What he experienced has been interpreted by the construction worker, the ambulance staff and psychiatrists as being medical, and is treated as such. The atmosphere in the film, throughout the first couple of scenes, went from total happiness to total despair (as seen through the eyes of Mr.Jones and through the visual storyline telling by Mike Figgis, the director of Mr. Jones).As the film continues, there is a fine line between absolute happiness and complete emotional despair.This film visually follows Mr. Jones. However this film does not seem to have a climax, a plot nor a strong message to the audience. Instead it attempts to portray the point of view on one individual and his unique journey through life, through the backdrop of the psychiatric system in the 1990's.Written by Annuska Victoria BC Canada

I find it interesting that films are so often chastised for being "unrealistic," when realism is usually neither an attainable nor desirable goal in a film (for example, most films don't portray a story that unfolds within two hours or less, so montages or other devices are used). The main purpose of Mr. Jones (the film) is to tell the story of a man with bipolar disorder, and issues of "realism," for me, are then based on two questions. Firstly, did the film, and Richard Gere in particular, accurately portray the experiences of a person with bipolar disorder? Secondly, was his experience with mental heath care also fairly portrayed? As someone who has suffered from bipolar disorder for almost ten years, I can unequivocally say that the answer to both questions is yes. This film gives the best portrayal I have yet to see of the experiences of suffering from and being treated for bipolar disorder.From the early scene where Mr. Jones is seen trying desperately to get a job, to the ending sequence where he tries to fly for the nth time over and gives up, Gere gives an outstanding and thoroughly believable performance of a man living with the intensity of bipolar disorder. Most poignant to me were the moments when he was able to realize just how much he was fooling himself about the disease, yet couldn't break away from it. In a lesser movie, the line "I'm an addict" would be a sarcastic reference to his medication; here, it is used as a perfect description of Jones' need for his manic highs.In addition, I have yet to see as understanding a cinematic portrayal of mental health care in the United States. Even upon viewing it fifteen years later, this film deals so accurately with so many mental health care issues - the "revolving door" aspect of treating patients in current-day America, the moments of joy and pain one can experience even within a hospital (without the overdone dramatics of most films taking place in mental hospitals), and the efforts and sacrifices that doctors and staff make every day. Indeed, one of the most striking aspects of the film has to be the ease with which Gere walks in and out of treatment, a truly realistic situation, even more realistic because he has apparently been doing so for many years. The reality, despite what films would normally have us believe, is that it is much more likely in America today to be trapped in a "revolving door" for many years, never getting the treatment one really needs, than to be "wrongfully institutionalized" for many years. Unfortunately for "realism," the latter makes for much better high drama.Speaking of high drama, let me turn to two slightly controversial aspects of the film: the love story aspect, and the ending. Personally, I don't find it "unrealistic" that Jones' doctor could fall in love with him - it certainly happens in real-life patient-doctor relationships, and it makes for an interesting twist. Others have criticized this part of the story as unnecessary, but I see no particular reason for its omission, because the film did give plenty of screen time to the story of Jones' disease and there was room for this extra plot angle. In addition, her responses to the developing relationship and her resignation were handled excellently and accurately - there was no deux ex machina that allowed her to stay at the hospital or keep treating him - and also allowed for a look at some of the ethical issues involved in mental heath care. My only issue with the love story was that it was a bit clichéd, but it didn't detract from the film much at all in my opinion.As for the ending, a lot of people have had trouble with the fact that Jones either seems to be "cured" too easily, or that there was no climax where he actually fell off the house, or that in general it was too "neatly wrapped up." I would have to say that, knowing the bipolar disorder condition so personally, the ending was perfect. For sufferers of bipolar disorder, it can be so easy and quick to move from one mood to another, and the arrival of a loved one can easily "snap you out" of dangerous situations. The message that I took from the ending was not that he was "cured," or that he wasn't (there is no "cure" for bipolar disorder at this point). It was simply that he had faced another tough day as a sufferer of a disease, and that he now had a lover who was going to help him face more tough days. The end dialogue is particularly telling. His last line: "So now what?" Hers: "A cup of coffee. Decaf." They are moving on. Our view into their lives is over, but they will be fighting the battle for years to come. The rest of the movie has already told us that. A lesser script would have had some sort of "and then life became great" montage, which would have ruined this film. Here we are left with the understanding that the fight against the disease goes on, but that he now has someone who will aid in the fight and temper his moods as best she can, starting with sticking to decaf (which is more than just a joke if you have bipolar disorder).If you don't mind a fairly standard Hollywood love story as part of the mix, you will find this an outstanding, moving, and educational film. I give it 9 out of 10 only because the love story goes on just a tad too long, and that time could have been used for more exploration of the illness and its treatment.

The movie "Mr. Jones" depicts what a person with bipolar disorder would act and look like. In the movie, Mr. Jones starts off by convincing a construction manager to hire him for the day, and during that conversation he shows signs of being bipolar. He is very keen on picking up on small signals, and also he talks very rapidly and energetically. Once he started to work, it became clearer that he had a problem. He started to walk "tight rope" style on top of a building stating that he was going to fly off the top of the house and gently land on the street. After that situation he was admitted to a psychiatric ward and was misdiagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He was then medicated with 10 mg. of Haldol, and kept for 72 hours because of the mandatory 5150 hold. For the next couple of scenes he showed what manic episodes look like. Towards the middle of the movie he started to show signs of major depressive disorder, which is part of bipolar. He was lethargic and very agitated with everyone and everything that was going on around him. Like most people with bipolar, he enjoyed and embraced his manic episodes (his highs), and that is why he refused to take his lithium. When Mr. Jones was going through his therapy with Dr. Elizabeth, he told her that he couldn't go on taking his medications, because he missed his highs. It seemed that it put him in a state of depression because he wasn't able to be as sharp as he once was. I believed that Richard Gere played the role of an individual with bipolar to a tee, and this movie also did a great job showing the ethical issues of psychiatry (even if they didn't mean to).Dr. Elizabeth did many unethical things throughout this movie. The first thing that she did wrong was, when she was talking to Mr. Jones she put her hand on his shoulder, and gave him a telephone number to reach her at. This is inappropriate, because there should be no physical contact between a psychiatrist and their patient. Another example of her unethical behavior was when she gave him a ride home, and then took him out for something to eat. I know that Hollywood wanted to make this a love story, but no psychiatrist in their right mind would take a patient out to eat and give them a ride home. That type of interaction is too personal, and is considered very unethical by most psychiatrists. Another situation that stands out in my mind is when she started to investigate the past of Mr. Jones. As a therapist you need consent in order to be able to dig into your patients past records. Toward the end of the movie Dr. Elizabeth kept getting closer and closer to Mr. Jones, until finally they ended up having "relations" with one another. To me this was the most unethical thing that she did throughout the whole movie.This movie in my opinion did a great job in showing what a person with bipolar deals with everyday, and how their lives are affected by medications, and hospitalization. I think this movie made psychiatrists look really bad and unprofessional, which is a shame because most psychiatrists aren't that way. This movie made female psychiatrists look especially bad, because it gave off the impression that they sleep with their patients and get to emotionally attached to them as well. If this was real life Dr. Elizabeth would have lost her psychiatrist license, and most likely gotten sued by the hospital and possibly the patient.

Vow, this could have been a great film.Mr. Jones, a manic depressive, grabs the attention of shrink Lena Olin who desperately wants to help Jones overcome his syndrome. Jones gets extremely high and in between has incredible lows and finally checks into a clinic in order to overcome his illness. But when his shrink starts to fall for him, things get complicated and Mr. Jones, who also loves her, may get suicidal.I don't think many people can deny the fact that Richard Gere is simply sensational in the title role. Equally good at portraying Mr. Jones's highs and lows and in fact; Mr. Jones is an extremely interesting character, who unfortunately, only gets mediocre treatment in a very average script. Instead, we get an implausible love story that grows even sillier as the movie progresses.In the end I felt very cheated. We get a very sappy ending in a movie that I felt took a desperately wrong turn somewhere in the middle. It starts off great but all goes downhill. What a shame, this could have been really special.