Movie Review: "Infinitely Polar Bear"

Infinitely Polar Bear (2014 Sundance; 2015 wide release)

R

3.5 Stars out of 5

Director                                Maya Forbes
Writer                                   Maya Forbes
Cinematography                 Bobby Bukowski

Mark Ruffalo                       Cam Stuart
Zoe Saldana                         Maggie Stuart
Imogene Wolodarsky        Amelia Stuart
Ashely Aufderheide           Faith Stuart

 

Writer/Director Maya Forbes grew up in a family beset with a problem: manic depression. Her father suffered from this disorder, and as a consequence, so did his family. The wild swings in mood from severe depression to uncontrollable exuberance on the part of her father almost certainly had a telling effect on young Maya and her sister. Now an adult and a film maker, she sought to tell a fictionalized version of her youth, even employing her own daughter in the role of the fictionalized family’s elder daughter. One might presume there could be defects in Forbes movie with respect to dramatic tension, plot pacing, acting or directing, but verisimilitude should be something Forbes would likely be well prepared to present. One might presume that, but in my opinion, one would be disappointed.

“Infinitely Polar Bear” is Forbes’ movie on that topic of manic-depression and its effects on a family that has the father expressing that problem. The father is Cam Stuart (Mark Ruffalo). He is the offspring of a wealthy New England family, though for reasons not entirely clear to me, he is penniless. His financial situation does not stem from his wild behavior; behavior which is quickly exhibited in the movie’s opening scene as he tries to take his two girls, Amelia (Imogene Wolodarsky – Forbes’ daughter) and Faith (Ashely Aufderheide) on a winter time bicycle ride. The girls are freezing and worried about their father’s manic behavior – behavior made all the worse as he is dressed only in bright red undershorts. Their mother, Maggie (Zoe Saldana) arrives on the scene and gathers the girls into their soon to be locked car. They stare in fear out the car’s windows as their father becomes further unhinged. He is soon taken away by an ambulance.

The movie jumps forward a couple of years when Cam is released from the hospital where he has been recovering. His recovery is slow and almost as frightening to the girls as his previous erratic behavior. The younger child Faith refers to his bi-polar disorder as “polar bear” giving the film its title and underscoring how confusing such a disorder would be to a child witnessing one of their parents transition from warm, loving and trustworthy to scary and completely unreliable. Cam will slowly move into the outside world and seek to re-unite with his wife and family, but he has lost the trust (though not the love) of Maggie; they will live apart until she can trust him once more.

Their previously fraught financial situation has not surprisingly worsened. Cam cannot work and can only barely care for the girls while Maggie works. This situation is intolerable. Maggie will seek to return to school to earn an advanced degree in business, hoping with the new degree to improve their finances. The plot demands that she be in New York for school while Cam and the girls remain behind in Boston (somewhat under Cam’s care). This situation too is bad, but the movie portrays it as passable. The girls will learn to accept their father’s limitations and learn to fend in some ways for themselves. Their mother will return in time and life will begin anew, or somewhat so.

The story is emotionally wrenching if one places oneself into the role of an 8 or 10 year child watching the foundations of their world start to fall apart. It is certain this movie is centered on Cam and Ruffalo’s portrayal of him, but it is the girls that give this movie its heart. Ruffalo will bring the same high intensity performance he used in 2015’s Oscar winner for Best Picture, “Spotlight”. Oddly I found his performance as a manic depressive to be more over the top than his “wound too tight” reporter in “Spotlight”. But where is the balance between such fictional characters with their given personalities and emotional states vs. an actor’s depiction of those states? For me, Ruffalo’s performance of a man losing his connections to the church and friends that he grew up with in that church, even as he pursues an investigation that depicts those friends and church in a very bad light was a performance that seemed dead on. Ironically, his performance in “Polar Bear” seems to be just exactly that, a performance.

An additional complication for me in Ruffalo’s performance is the absence of the second half of manic depression: the depression phase. The movie shows on multiple times the manic phase and a few cases where Cam is under a reasonable level of control. An argument could be made that the lithium carbonate that Cam is supposed to be taking following his hospital stay has the whole condition under control. Clearly this is not the case as he admits to not taking the drug (all too common, evidently). Lacking the depression phase of his disorder, Cam’s character lacks much pathos and seems to be simply someone “high on life”. It does not come across on the screen as a person tortured by his psychology. It seems unreal medically and is a major flaw from a dramatic point of view.

What does work and why I generally enjoyed this film are the two girls. Their confusion and pain is there for the world to see and to relate to. Their mother may make a decision that borders on the absolutely unbelievable (i.e. leaving them in the care of someone not fit to care for them for weeks at a time); their father’s character may seem like more of an irresponsible cad as much as someone suffering from a debilitating mental disorder; but regardless of the veracity of Cam’s problem or the mother’s odd career choices, these are two young girls in pain and at great personal risk. The writing of their plight and the two young actresses playing their parts are the reasons I recommend this movie; though I do so with some reservations.