just watched The Backrooms movie so let me drop some interpretations of some scenes and messaging before i see what everyone else is saying about it:
i think mary is a bad therapist 😱😱😱 im sorry but i think perhaps her previous childhood experiences with her mother’s mental illness could be affecting how she views her own clients, I think perhaps she may have some deep subconscious resentment towards people who seek help from her, and I’ll tell you why I think that. From the beginning we see her take a bit of a simplistic look towards mental illnesses like depression, “if you just opened the window you could pass through it, its not locked, the latch isn’t broken, just open it.” However repeatedly during the movie we see characters encounter windows that they can not pass through or even see, one of the very last shots of the movie is Phil looking at an extremely tinted window, people on the other side are watching him to see what he does and what Mary does but its not like he can see them, and its definitely not a window that can just be opened. Clark depicts himself(?) falling from a window into the hands of a horrible version of himself, perhaps he sees Mary’s main philosophy as more of a trap than freedom, just the fact that Mary is so obsessed with windows is proof that she’s not over her own childhood trauma and is not seeking help for it (therapists can see therapists its true.) Then we have the scene where she breaks from the therapist role and is her most authentic self and it shows she kind of hates Clark because he blames everyone but himself for his problems (which isn’t necessarily untrue) but then she says the line, “you are your fucking brain,” which is the problem with her as a therapist. I don’t know if you know this, but therapists aren’t supposed to fucking say that, mostly because of people who struggle with intrusive thoughts and anxiety and shit like that, because if someone with issues like this were to believe that, they may kill themselves! Which, interestingly, by some interpretations, is exactly what happens right after Mary tells Clark this.
The scene where Clark (most likely) dies is very interesting to me. Because, as I’ve already said, it could be a metaphor for suicide, Capt. Clark kills Clark, he kills himself in a way. It could also be a metaphor for if you give in to your mental illness, if you let it rule your life then you will be eaten alive by it, which is a very literal interpretation but whatevah. Or that if you giving up on changing for the better all that will be left, or all people will remember you as, is a half-baked caricature of what you truly are, I don’t know.
Clark is intriguing as a character because it’s unclear what he wants from therapy, he misses his wife but still has this distain for her trying to become a lawyer stemming from his own failures to succeed as an architect; he doesn’t seem to want to learn to cope with his failures though. Therapy has done nothing to stop or slow his drinking, perhaps he just needs someone to talk to, someone who will take his side or listen to him when he has no one in his life who he would call a friend. In the scene where he’s having “dinner” with Mary he asks her how to stop, how to stop messing up his own life, and Mary says, “I have no fucking idea,” so another win for team ‘Bad Therapist Mary’ haha just kidding but it seems he wants his life to be better. He wants to be happier he wants to stop doing bad things, that’s probably what he wants from therapy, but there is not cure-all answer there, while Mary says, “that’s just how you’re wired,” I do think that could be partially true but that’s an overly simplistic and not a very therapist way of thinking. I believe positive change is always possible, while your wiring may be done kind of poorly and you have three switches on your breaker box unconnected to the others, if the circumstances allow for it, you can improve, that’s what I think. Clark mentions his childhood in a way that sounds like it was very difficult for him, but Mary never talks about it, it’s unclear if she even knows what it was like. Clark also keeps bringing up money when talking about troubles with his wife, if law school didn’t cost so much, if the home he bought for them didn’t cost so much, perhaps he wouldn’t feel so trapped in his own life if everything didn’t cost so fucking much. But, it’s also possible I’m projecting my gripes with money onto da movie. But, that interpretation is very true to life, it’s not uncommon for people’s circumstances to lead to problems with mental health that feel inescapable. its like that post i cant remember where it came from that says “money cant buy happiness but its more comfortable to cry in a lamborghini than on a bicycle” or smthn, AND THEYRE RIGHT. THEYRE RIGHT! shit sucks if ur poor and everyday is the same if ur poor so no wonder its so difficult to get out of a loop when the bills just keep fucking adding up. I think the backrooms are a metaphor for mental illness and i’d bet my bottom dollar u agree. I like it a lot as a depiction of that, because Clark is “normal,” and Mary is “normal,” but they still struggle through incomplete memories and looping through the same nightmares over and over in a place nobody can see. It’s not the popular depiction of struggles within your own mind, it’s not under-researched view of PTSD and/or hallucinations it’s a person who is outwardly “normal” who is troubled immensely in a place that hardly anyone can see and seems inescapable. Even if they DO see it, ppl might just observe you and LEAVE YOU THERE??? (Rest in Peace Clark and fuck those MIR machines) Which is cool to me forgive me I think its cool, that’s a lot like how it is irl. The more common depictions have their place, but mental illness rarely looks the same, even if tv shows and movies would lead you to believe otherwise. The way the movie constantly depicts Mary in a windowless room even after Mary has destroyed the concrete from her home which was demolished shows it truly is nearly impossible to escape The Backrooms even if you do, there’s still a version of yourself half-remembered there, which makes me think that the movie has a better understanding of how tough your own mind can be to overcome than Mary does. (sorry if it seems like I hate her, i dont, but i do think she shouldnt be a therapist lowkey)
As for the overall message I think it may be that it’s very easy to get trapped within your own mind even if you’re what everyone else would consider a “normal” person. I made these interpretations from my own perspective, it’s possible that Mary is the “voice of reason” and that what the movie wants us to learn is what she tells us, I hope that is not the case frankly because it seems defeatist in a way I really dislike when it comes to those who struggle with mental illnesses/disorders. I think that Mary as the voice of reason is also unlikely due to how her honest words seemingly temporarily calm Clark but they also seem to lead to his death. I’m usually pretty bad at interpreting things, I won’t lie, I’m always too biased and I can’t deny that I want to see things from my own preferred perspective most of the time, but perhaps theres something of note here. Probably not enough to justify reading it all tho
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