As a person living with anxiety and panic disorder, I was not expecting to have a reaction like I did with this film. While the film had amazing cinematography and set production, the editing is what caused my panic attack.

The first thing that had started to put me into the mindset to have the panic attack was how ill Susan Goldfarb, played by Ellen Burstyn, became after mixing her diet pills. The diet pills were not ones that make someone lose more weight, but rather induce the body to be more active and to not feel as hungry. The fish-eye effect also made me quite queasy every-time they showed it on screen, the hearing was muffled so it creates a false sense of reality. Mrs. Goldfarb’s cheekbones and jawline are much more pronounced now that in the beginning of the film – the pills are starving her. The doctor didn’t even look at her this entire scene, just his eyes on his clipboard. I think one of my internal fears about this scene in particular is about patient care with my doctors. If he has an MD and couldn’t even see how much his patient was suffering, wow he might need to rethink his course of actions. Another fear I might have is that i have been losing weight kind of rapidly since the summer, I eat enough on my vegan diet so that I’m full but I just really don’t understand what’s going on or why I can’t gain my weight back. Mrs. Goldfarb looks so fearful in this scene, that she doesn’t feel okay – mirroring how I have been feeling for the past few weeks. Her reasons being different than mine, she could be fearful of the fact that she’s hallucinating and feeling the way she does.

This scene, specifically, made me feel so much worse. Seeing her once happy self, seeing her eyes so lifeless and seeing how much she’s aged since beginning to take those drugs. Her eyes are filled with pain, hopelessness even and it scares me that I could be her one day. I’m terrified of losing my memory, at my young age of 18 I can’t remember important things, to do things I’m supposed to have learned by now or get out of habits that I shouldn’t have – like watching too much Netflix. Mrs. Goldfarb is alone, in her apartment and in life. I’m afraid that I will end up alone like that, be worthless to someone other than the fact that they would be able to use me so easily like her son did to her. Her son doesn’t visit her as much as he should, he takes her TV so he can buy drugs and she has to go and buy it back. The scene where the cinematographer and the director did a close-up of his infected arm where he injects his drug of choice.

I made this picture larger than the others because of how important it is to me, even during the movie. How peaceful these young people are, their embrace is what I miss the most about having my boyfriend gone at university; I haven’t seen him in three weeks. The close touch, the warmth, the feel of his breath and his chest moving – I crave human contact because i am distant towards others at my university. My goals seem so far away and my life seems like a waste if I can’t make someone proud of me. I have so many responsibilities to think of and do that I haven’t even had time to cope with the death of my family dog, Benni. I doubt that it’s healthy, but I don’t have time to worry about myself when I need to be doing so many things.

The pace of the film was getting faster and faster with the editing and the sound was getting louder. The background buzzing sound was also getting more apparent by the end of the film, indicating the chatacters’ need to get their next fix or their frayed minds.

Overall, I think the film was very well directed, edited and screen played but I don’t think I would watch it again if I had this reaction the first time around.