In 1997 there were many who fell in love with Better ... impossible (As Good as It Gets), by James L. Brooks. The comedy was carried out by an obsessive, rude, homophobic, egomaniacal and misanthropic character who, nevertheless, we liked very much.
Melvin Udall (played by Jack Nicholson), is diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
His life is very limited due to the imperative need to perform a series of compulsive rituals to calm the anguish of intrusive thoughts: close the door lock five times, wash his hands with a new soap each time, use silverware in the restaurant. plastic, do not step on the lines of the sidewalks, etc..
We are now going to focus on the obsessive personality structure, which may or may not be accompanied by OCD symptoms. For Lacan, the main characteristic of the obsessive is his inability to sustain the desire (Pascual, 2014).
The obsessive crushes his desire hidden in a shell, which in Melvin's case is built on sarcasm and apparent cynicism. Can you love Melvin? Perhaps the moment that best portrays this obsessive structure is the sequence of the restaurant. Carol Connelly (Helen Hunt), approaches Melvin with the intention of kissing him.
- Don't you ever let a romantic moment make you do something stupid?
- Never.
Carol kisses him and continues to corner him.
- So now that all your vulnerability is exposed, tell me why did you bring me here?
- It's a personal question - Melvin answers increasingly uncomfortable.
- Tell me, even if you are afraid. Tell me why you wanted me here Don't worry, if you ask me I'll say yes.
Melvin, visibly distraught, cannot sustain the desire and drives Carol off by offending her with his gay neighbor (Simon):
- I thought ... one idea was that, maybe if you made love to Simon ...
Melvin likes Carol, but is unable to even consciously represent it. Add that, although it is not the subject that concerns us, both actors won the Oscar for the best main performance for this film.
The obsessive is trapped in the ghostly scene with the primordial attachment figures, generally the father and / or mother, or the figures who have performed this function in their childhood.
Scene that he is condemned to repeat all his life, with the people he meets, of not doing something about it. From Melvin's past, the film only hints that he suffered from an abusive father. Facing the desire can mean falling into the desire of the other, in this case of Carol.
It is too threatening for our protagonist, because Melvin has not yet been able to get rid of that arbitrary and cruel father, whose desire must have lived as deadly (of his mother we know nothing). What love implies, contacting our vulnerability, trusting the other, being able to show ourselves to be lacking, is tremendously damaged in Melvin, or precariously constructed..
In a traumatic situation where the father simply does not fulfill the paternal function of bequeathing love and Law, both love and hate impulses are repressed. Sometimes, an excess of love for the father, hidden, precisely, by reactive formation, the hatred that cannot be recognized, because it is prohibited.
The obsessive, who is a great repressed, he is forced to make his characteristic symptomatic formations. Freud tells us in the famous clinical case of The rat man, that in every neurosis we discover as substrates of the symptoms the same repressed instincts (Freud, 1909).
Melvin's aggressiveness seems to be displaced, in the form of sarcasm, towards his neighbors or fellow citizens, who have done nothing to him. We also presumably see its substratum in compulsive hand washing, generally interpreted as washing away guilt, the guilt for aggressiveness towards the father.
Love seems to only emerge in the writing of his romantic novels. Again, Freud tells us in the same text, that in the obsessive the thought is eroticized. Pleasure shifts to intellectual activity.
We also see that, when Melvin welcomes his evicted neighbor, Simon (Greg Kinnear), he forgets not only the compulsion of the lock, but even closing the door. You start to need to close yourself less to life.
Both the waitress Carol, and Simon's dog, are the ones who gradually begin to libidinize, and despite their resistance, Melvin's dying desire for the world.
The original title of the film, As Good as It Gets, does not have an exact translation in Spanish, but Better ... impossible is quite close to its meaning. Since desire is so distressing to Melvin, what better way than to let it go a bit with irony?
Better impossible can mean that everything is going great, or precisely the opposite, that everything is going horribly wrong. The irony allows Melvin to strain some of his desire without completely abandoning the armor of cynicism, which he so badly needs. A brilliant solution for a guy, deep down, although hidden and hidden, very bright.
Although the film is perhaps one of the best portraying OCD (recently we were able to see, for example, the film Knock Knock (Vicente Villanueva, 2017), who caricatured the disorder in a rude way), it is still a fictional film that is due to cinematographic language.
The improvement of Nicholson's character, due to the beneficial effects of the love of a dog, a waitress and a gay neighbor, would indeed be possible in reality, but not in such a meteoric way. Melvin has taken a big step, being able to recognize his love for Carol, and finally being able to express it to her, not without great difficulties (I insist that this aspect of the breastplate is perhaps what is best portrayed in the film).
Despite all the repressed content of Melvin would continue to be expressed in different ways: mistrust towards the partner, unjustified jealousy, detached affections, sadness not expressed by not elaborate duels... Melvin is also a great narcissist, his childish behavior is masterfully displayed when he goes to Carol's house, only to have her come back to serve him at the restaurant.
Aspects of a latent or repressed homosexuality, which occurs in many great obsessives bullied by arbitrary parents, they could be behind their apparent homophobia. And I say apparent because it is not known if it is real, perhaps as a reactive formation to an unrecognized homosexuality, or one more way of rejecting affections for others.
The obsessive can also be seen in Melvin, by not recognizing his constitutive lack of being, he is an expert in seeing the lack in others. Just as children quickly detect the defects of others, or their weak points, especially the unrecognized.
Definitely, OCD symptoms may improve, restructuring in a more bearable, less rigid, or less burdensome way, as the film seems to indicate, but healing from an obsessive structure is not so easy. Some therapists believe that if the obsessive is convinced that he is loved, he will be cured, but mistrust reigns in him. Would Carol here convince Melvin that he is loved at last??
References
Freud, S. (1909). Complete works vol. X: Analysis of the phobia of a five-year-old boy (little Hans); About a case of obsessive neurosis (the rat man). Argentina (1998): Amorrortu.
Pascual, C. (2014). The Impossibility of Desire in Obsessive Neurosis. Retrieved from: http://gpab.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Clotilde-Pascual.pdf
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