Benny and Joon is a sweet, romantic comedy about siblings who lived together and try to deal with Joon’s mental illness. The movie does not specifically state what Joon’s diagnosis is, but I would guess that it was schizophrenia judging by her behavior. Benny struggled with providing the care for her that she needs because her housekeepers kept quitting when she scared them off. He contemplated putting her into a group home when Sam (Johnny Depp’s character) comes into their lives after Joon lost a hand of poker to Benny’s friend, Mike. Since they inherited a new roommate, Benny entrusted Sam to look after his sister as the temporary housekeeper. Sam was an eccentric person who had a passion for old movies and physical comedy, and eventually Sam and Joon fell in love. At first Benny struggled with the idea of Sam and his sister’s relationship since he had always been her overprotective, big brother, but after she tried to run away with Sam and had a psychotic episode on a bus, he learned to let go of Joon to let her learn to live her own life independently so that she would be happy. This movie tries not to focus on mental illness itself, but focuses on how mental illness can impact the family.
Joon was a talented artist who channeled her feelings into her paintings and drawings. She was a bit eccentric as well. She wore helmets in the car and a snorkel in the house. She also tried to direct traffic in a busy intersection with a ping pong paddle and her snorkel mask. Joon also could not be trusted alone since she liked to light things on fire and had a tendency to wander.
Symptoms: Joon also had some obsessive compulsive tendencies in the film. She had a set routine and lashed out when she got stressed or agitated. She called Benny’s garage obsessively because she thought that needing more peanut butter from the store was an emergency. When Sam played music too loud while he was cleaning the house, she stormed into the house, unplugged the boom box, and kicked him out of the house. Another example was the scene where Benny and Joon got into an argument over ping pong and she claimed that he was trying to cheat her, threw the paddle at a lamp, and stormed off to her room.
She talked to herself and sometimes heard voices in her head as well. There was a scene at the beginning of the film where Benny was frustrated after the last housekeeper quit and he stated that she was not to leave the house alone, to which she replied, “Define alone.”
Treatment: Joon was taken to a psychiatrist regularly who also talked to Benny about her treatment recommendations. Joon had medication that she took, and her psychiatrist recommended that she was placed into a group home several times throughout the film. She stated that she would have had the support of her peers and would have been under less stress. They also had the resources to help her get a job.
Benny rejected the notion that he could not handle his sister’s illness anymore, but did contemplate it when his friends pointed out that he was missing out on his life by focusing so much on hers. He turned down dates with women because he felt like he did not have the time for them.
At the end of the film, she was admitted to a mental hospital to treat her illness after she had the manic episode on the bus. She refused all visitors, so Benny and Sam decided to sneak in. Sam decided to sacrifice himself by creating a diversion in the hallway so that Benny could see Joon, finally. They talked it over with her psychiatrist and against her better judgment, approved for Joon to move out with Sam into her own apartment. The last scene is Sam and Joon making grilled cheese sandwiches with an iron meant for clothes.
To connect this film to what we have learned about in class, this film is definitely a more modern day depiction of schizophrenia. She had outpatient therapy, and lived at home with her brother. There was a psychiatric facility, but Joon checked herself into it, and she was allowed to reject visitors if she pleased. She was also in control over if she left or not, so it was not a prison sentence. The group home that they tried to get her to go to seemed like it was more of a college-like dorm experience since they said that she would be among her peers and they would help her get a job to gain her own independence.
Since Joon’s condition was not clarified in the movie, it is hard to compare her specific diagnosis to the other mental illnesses that we have discussed this semester already. Her version of schizophrenia was similar to Alice Wilson’s in Metzel’s book, The Protest Psychosis, where she seemed to be doing fine until she wasn’t anymore. Joon did not adjust well to change and her anxiety would trigger episodes where she would need medical intervention to help her. Benny said that she talked to herself and heard voices in her head, but that was not apparent in the movie.
