Elyse

About the movie

In this exploration of grief, auteur, Stella Hopkins, brings to the screen, Elyse, a psychological drama.To the outside world, Elyse (Lisa Pepper) appears to be a poised, beautiful, and intelligent woman-but internally she is savaged by Borderline Personality Disorder and Clinical Depression.As the film opens, we follow Elyse walking out of a white, concrete, architectural, designer house; there is minimal trace of human warmth or personal inspiration. The house mirrors a mausoleum, externalizing the spirit of her dead son, Cody (Griffin Thomas Hollander).After a long day of aimless meandering, Elyse returns home fragile and disoriented. She is unwilling to join the family dinner and misconceives the gathering as an immediate threat to her personal life and marriage. Unwarranted, Elyse becomes agitated and rejects the loving concern from her devoted husband, Steven (Aaron Tucker). We witness Elyse's volatile temperament escalate into an explosive fit, lashing out at her egocentric mother, Goldie (Fran Tucker).In a psychotic enraged blackout, Elyse commits involuntary vehicular manslaughter of her young son, Cody, and his nanny, Julia (Julieta Ortiz). The film makes clear that Elyse is not the only victim; her affliction of delusional thinking, profound narcissism, and violent behavior, gradually annihilates her husband.Memory and hallucination intertwine to expose a history of trauma, revealing the painful truth: Elyse is Catatonic and institutionalized in a State Hospital.Elyse's recovery is reliant on the inescapable dissolution of her marriage, the restoration of the relationship with her mother, and the mutual absolution with Carmen (Tara Arroyave), the nanny's daughter.Ultimately, it's the clinical care from the Chief of Psychiatry, Dr. Lewis (Anthony Hopkins), and the unconditional love from her nurse, David (Anthony Apel), that promise Elyse a new life.