Movie depictions of mental illness don’t often come with much accuracy, let alone sensitivity. Fear of Rain does a solid job of creating a suspenseful atmosphere with its protagonist, Rain, who suffers from schizophrenia, while also drawing attention to the stigmas that surround people with such disorders.
Despite its occasional clumsiness and reliance on cliches, it provides its audience with an engaging mystery and successfully does what a psychological thriller should do: it puts us in a position where we experience some of what Rain is going through as we question what is real in the film and what’s not.
Synopsis of Fear of Rain
Fear of Rain opens with a classic, horror-style chase through the woods, with Rain (Madison Iseman) being pursued by a dark figure. The chase turns out to be a vivid hallucination that’s part of a psychotic breakdown, and when she comes out of it, she finds she’s been involuntarily committed. Her parents, Michelle (Katherine Heigl) and John (Harry Connick Jr.), struggle to deal with their daughter’s issues, and once she’s home and on a new medication regimen, life seems to be more settled and peaceful. The momentary tranquility ends when Rain sees a little girl behind the attic window of her neighbor and teacher, Ms. McConnell’s (Eugenie Bondurant) house and begins to believe the woman kidnapped the child.
Despite Rain’s persistent uncertainty about what she’s may or may not be hallucinating, she’s steadfast in her belief that Ms. McConnell is hiding a dark secret that Rain desperately wants to uncover. As the mystery presents itself, she meets with doubt from her parents and struggles with being isolated from her catty peers. When she meets a boy named Caleb (Israel Broussard) in Ms. McConnell’s class, the two bond and team up to get to the bottom of what’s going on in the teacher’s house, if anything.
Fear of Rain’s Main Cast Performances
The performances in the film are all solid, though not groundbreaking. Madison Iseman has the toughest job in the film of portraying the nuances of schizophrenia. But she effectively shows the tumult of Rain’s most disturbed psychoses and also the shifts between normalcy and paranoia. She shows us how there’s no clear divide between a normal state of mind and a delusional one, as her delusions worsen her perception of events even when those events are extremely troubling.
The other noteworthy performance is by Israel Broussard as the awkward Caleb. He too is an outcast at his school, but for him it’s because of his obscure, intellectual interests and social awkwardness.
The other characters in the film are somewhat cliched and flat by comparison. Ms. McConnell has a stereotypical creepiness from her initial close-up, making us realize from the get-go that something is off with her. And Harry Connick Jr. and Katherine Siegl play concerned and frustrated parents, but have no other layers to them.
A Surprisingly Positive Depiction of Mental Illness
Fear of Rain deserves props for making an effort to demystify schizophrenia while also making the disorder an integral part of a disturbing plot. Films like Split have garnered criticism for using mental illness to create a disturbing atmosphere where the person who suffers from the disorder causes harm to others while the illness itself is grossly exaggerated for the sake of entertainment. Fear of Rain shows us a teenage girl who wants to lead a normal life, but is plagued with a rare case of both voices and visual hallucinations, while at the same time exposing the ignorance of people who have false beliefs about what schizophrenia is.
We’re shown the trauma that can result from involuntary hospitalization, as Rain’s real experience of being strapped to the bed combines with her hallucinations, thus worsening her psychosis. Rain’s reluctance to adhere to medication might also ring true for anyone who is schizophrenic or knows someone who is schizophrenic, as she says “it makes me feel like a zombie and I can’t paint. I can’t feel anything.” She struggles with trying to control her symptoms while also retaining her identity.
The plot balances this realism with a simultaneous twisting of reality from the viewer’s perspective. This works because the suspense both reels us into the story and gives us a small glimpse into what it would be like to live with the disorder.
You can rent or order Fear of Rain from here:
The Ending is Somewhat Predictable
Everything from the bullying and alienation Rain’s experienced to the budding relationship with Caleb (who she’s not quite sure exists) makes the audience entirely on her side throughout her journey. We want to believe that some of her beliefs are grounded in reality and that those around her aren’t doing her justice. This results in some predictability at the end, although we’re taken through some twists and turns along the way.
Toward the conclusion of the film, a surprising twist alters the narrative’s course and the disarray it causes momentarily befuddles the audience, making us question the validity of everything we think is true in the story. One wonders if it will end similarly to Shutter Island, where the protagonist turns out to have only a loose grip on reality, or if it will end with Rain being a hero.
But the movie isn’t designed to let us mull the question over for too long, since it spent too much time building our sympathy and empathy for Rain to let us down so cruelly.
Fear of Rain is a Good Thriller With Some Cliches
Anyone who is a voracious consumer of psychological thrillers, such as The Girl on the Train, The Woman in the Window, and (if we look far back) Rear Window, will probably be able to predict how it will end, which might lessen the suspense for some viewers. Aside from this, the flatter characters surrounding Rain and Caleb can make it feel like a Lifetime film on occasion–especially toward the end when the discombobulation caused by the twist feels too dramatic and doesn’t jive coherently with the main story.
But overall, Fear of Rain succeeds in giving us suspense while also handling mental illness in a fairly progressive way, especially compared to some other films in the genre.
Check out the trailer of Fear of Rain movie here:
Fear of Rain
Pros
- Great cinematography
- Good Direction
- Katherine Heigl
Cons
- Plot of the movie
- Screenplay
