The delight of the film lies not only in Pakula’s recognition of what makes a cliché an archetype, and what he does with his film’s archetypal content, but also in the sheer audacity of the Pakula style...
Apparently, everyone decided to take a break from reading the day in 2002 when author and Brown University psychiatrist Dr. Peter Kramer wrote in the New York Times that “Prozac was no more, and perhaps less, effective in treating major depression than prior medications. . . . I argued that the theories of brain functioning that led to the development of Prozac must be wrong or incomplete.” Tell that to TV and those ads that hypnotize the consumer-patient directly: “You just shouldn’t have to feel this way anymore” (Zoloft); “Lexapro improves symptoms of depression.” And the clincher: “Feeling unusually sad or irritable? Find it hard to concentrate? Lose your appetite? Lack energy? Or having trouble feeling pleasure? . . . To help bring serotonin levels closer to normal, the medicine doctors now prescribe most often is Prozac.” For all we know, like 35 percent of American adults, according to a 2003 survey on the health effects of direct-to-consumer drug advertising, Kazmierczak walked into his doctor’s office on a day he felt a little worse for wear and requested a prescription for the fix-all himself...
Given the considerable power differential between the new condo owners moving into the neighborhood and the low-income population that has been rooted there for many years, the language of social mix serves to justify giving the right to space and property to those with wealth, and taking it away from those who are poor. Social mix, then, is a strategy used to expand hierarchical structures and mask asymmetrical power, and as such it undermines the possibility of genuine social solidarity while rhetorically appearing to promote it. It is the wolf in sheep’s clothing...
