As a therapist, what the review leaves out that will be relevant to viewers in therapy, is its exploration of grief, traumatic loss and depression. A lot has changed since the 1970s — during which the film is set and captures magically — but the shame and secrecy that plagues so many with depressive disorders remains. And the Holdovers treats this topic with seriousness and sensitivity.

Discovering infidelity leads many couples to seek therapy. The road to repair such a betrayal is a painful one that takes patience, commitment and hard work. As a couples’ therapist who believes in the power of prescriptive film-viewing, I often suggest that couples working through the discovery of infidelity watch movies on this topic. The Last Kiss, Away from Her, Maybe He’s Just Not that Into You, Take This Waltz and The One I Love are some of my favorites. Being the Ricardos recently dropped on Amazon and could also offer a meaningful viewing experience for people suffering in the aftermath of a betrayal of this nature.

Most of the film unfolds on the turbo-charged set of the I Love Lucy show, in 1952, and traces the rehearsal and production process of a single episode. The cast convenes to read the lines the day after Walter Winchell reported that Lucille Ball was listed as a member of the communist party. Nicole Kidman is entirely convincing as Lucille Ball and Javier Bardem is equally captivating as Desi Arnaz. The episode’s assembly timeline frames a plot which is interspersed with flashbacks documenting how each half of this couple factored heavily in the other’s stunning professional success.

From a psychological perspective, what is most interesting about the film is its ability to capture the deep the bond between this prolific power couple while simultaneously exploring their marital pathology. Lucy and Desi are creative soulmates. Desi commands the big picture of their artistic vision and Lucy pays meticulous, relentless attention to every minute detail of their performance. When they first meet and fall in love, it is Desi who pushes Lucy to conceive of herself as more than a typical Hollywood starlet. It is he who notices her natural comic genius. It is Lucy who challenges powerful male executives and faces down brutal racial stereotypes, refusing to sign onto the I Love Lucy show if she cannot have Desi as her co-star. (She is warned by bullying studio bigwigs that America will not accept their marriage and that if Desi plays her husband, the show will fail.) Their creative chemistry seems so magical that viewers may understandably long for the couple to prevail. It is so easy to see why Lucy is drawn to Desi. He gets her – he protects her – he respects her artistry and he has her professional back. Their ability to complement each other’s strengths and limitations offers a rare window into how suspecting or unsuspecting partners can overlook infidelity. The film is a compelling essay on the pulls of denial and the pains of discovery.

Leo Tolstoy’s novel Anna Karenina opens with the sentence: “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” The same could be said about happy and unhappy marriages. Few couples have shared the level of synergetic collaboration and shared professional success as Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz. And one distinct feature of this “unhappy” marriage is the tremendous joy and pleasure that their union brought to the American public.

Stevenson’s memoir, Just Mercy, was a best-seller that brought Walter McMillan’s story national attention. Director Destin Daniel Cretton adapted the book into a film of the same name that was released in January and is currently streaming on Amazon Prime. The timely release of this bravely acted, absorbing true story puts the film on a short list of accessible resources inviting reflection on the flaws in our criminal justice system.

Just Mercy does more than lay bare the need for criminal justice reform. It tells a story of family, community, friendship and love. It demonstrates that couples can and do recover from infidelity. This is hardly the point of the film, but as a couples therapist I find it a noteworthy detail explored from an unusual angle. It celebrates the value of professional integrity and demonstrates why pursuit of meaningful work is always fulfilling and sometimes an act of bravery.

Just Mercy is a true story that is as relevant as ever, and appropriate for family viewing with middle school and high school aged children.

In my work with therapy clients, I always conduct a “genogram”. A genogram is a comprehensive family history utilizing specific psychological perspectives and strategies to help individuals determine how their childhood and their parents’ childhoods impact their current life experience. Genograms are also a meaningful element of couples therapy. Hearing a partner’s family history in this particular therapeutic context often teaches couples new things about each other. And even when they do not learn something new, they almost always develop new insights and greater levels of empathy for each other that serve the relationship well and help the couple work through current challenges with mutual compassion.

Canadian actor, writer and director Sarah Polley’s 2013 documentary, The Stories We Tell, is basically a series of genograms conducted by Sarah with members of her own family. These interviews are then brilliantly interspersed with home movies – some real and some manufactured. Sarah’s mother, actress Diane Polley, died in 1990 when Sarah was eleven. As the interviews unfold, different versions of the same story add texture and contrast to the director’s attempt to learn more about her mother and herself. Each family member’s narrative simultaneously enhances and challenges the others. As the viewer and the director move closer and closer to the truth behind the family secret, we realize there is no one singular truth. Each family member has a different experience within the same family. But giving voice to various memories and perspectives appears therapeutic and simultaneously celebrates the parallels between art and therapy.

For anyone who has ever wondered about a mysterious time from a family member’s past or a long-ago chapter from the family history that feels unclear, The Stories We Tell will be as relatable as it is inspirational.

The Stories We Tell is available to stream on Netflix and won the New York Film Critics Circle Award in 2013 for Best Non Fiction Film and the 2013 Canadian Screen Award for Best Feature Length Documentary.

Another interesting thread connecting varying approaches to therapy is a shared acknowledgment of the healing nature of storytelling. Studies continue to affirm that journaling facilitates healing, reduces anxiety and can crystalize insight and understanding. Newer research also emphasizes the therapeutic value of film viewing with respect to improving therapeutic outcomes.

As I watched and re-watched Jennifer Fox’s brilliant new film The Tale, I was struck by her ability to take viewers along her journey through writing a script and then directing a film that re-tells and re-processes her traumatic childhood memories about sexually abusive relationships with her running and horseback riding coaches. (The Tale is the first dramatic film purchased rather than produced by HBO and premiered on Saturday evening.)

The film opens by explaining: “The story you are about to see is true, as far as I know.” This honest introduction invites viewers on a harrowing, heartfelt journey through which the protagonist digs in deep to make sense of the messages and scripts she created during childhood in order to survive. These old scripts allow her not only to survive – but professionally thrive in the competitive world of documentary filmmaking. The writer/ director uses her own name throughout the story, in which Laura Dern plays the part of Jennifer with raw affect and candor. While subjugating her personal story, Jennifer cultivates her documentary skills to tell the global stories of abused and exploited women around the world.

The Tale opens while forty-eight year-old Jennifer is filming on remote location and receives several frantic calls from her mother. Having discovered a middle school essay ensconced in the attic of her childhood home, Jennifer’s mother reads her daughter’s tale of “something so beautiful” – a special, loving relationship between young “Jenny” and her two magnificent adult coaches. The back page of the essay includes the teacher’s misguided feedback that the story, while disturbing, must be rooted in the young author’s active imagination. Jennifer’s mother remembers her own suspicions and fears that The Tale is one of truth not fiction. When Jennifer’s fiancé (played convincingly by Common) reads old letters between student and coach that were also discovered in the attic, he, too, raises concerns. Jennifer asserts her determined refusal to experience herself as a victim: “It was MY childhood…. He was MY coach…This was important to me… I’m NOT a victim!” She then insists that her loving partner get out of their home and leave her alone.

In one of many effective cinematic takes on the elusive nature of memory, flashbacks to a young “Jenny” begin with several riding-oriented scenes at the coach’s farm, during which Jessica Sarah Flaum plays Jenny as a developed teenage girl. Once adult Jennifer sits down with her mother in her childhood home, flipping through photographs taken during the time frame she is exploring, she is jolted into the startling realization that she was only 13 years old when she wrote the essay about the relationship. Suddenly, the flashbacks shift. Young Jenny is re-scripted, re-cast and replayed by a much younger, pre-pubescent Isabell Nelisse.

Survivors of childhood sexual abuse are best advised to watch this important film with supportive loved ones. The material is graphic and raw and may trigger traumatic memories and unsettling feelings. Hotline numbers are provided through the film and the credits clarify what looks somewhat obvious in a visually compelling cinematic strategy – an adult body double is used during the scenes that depict sex between an adult and a minor. The director’s approach to filming the sex scenes represents a metaphor for the film as a whole. The Tale is at once brutally honest, but also a template for the healing process. Great art depicts the ugliest and darkest corners of human nature, but also the capacity for healing and growth. Sometimes it is the creative process itself that culminates in the greatest healing of all.

Couples tend to connect and fall in love with someone who is at a compatible level of emotionally maturity. Ideally, then, through the arc of an adult life, they grow and mature together. If emotional maturity level is a conscious and unconscious bonding mechanism, it makes perfect sense that many romantic relationships with significant age differences work quite well. In fact, one perspective about relationships like this that fail is that the younger person keeps maturing and eventually outgrows their older partner who may be developmentally stuck at a level far beneath their numerical age.

Film Stars Don’t Die in Liverpool is both a star-struck love story and a compelling essay in emotional maturity. Based on actor Peter Turner’s memoir about his legendary love affair with Academy Award winning actress Gloria Grahame, the film tells two stories at once. The first is Turner’s reflections of Grahame’s debilitating battle with cancer and her desire to fight the disease in Liverpool with Turner’s family in his parents’ home. Turner and Grahame meet in 1978 when he is 26 and she is 54, so she is closer in numerical age to Turner’s parents, who are also her longtime fans. Grahame’s cancer spreads grief, compassion and heartache through her lover’s family, while her own biological family remains clueless about her medical condition. Grahame’s health decays as nursing scenes are interspersed with Turner’s adoring recollections of their love story.

Turner (Jamie Bell) and Grahame (Annette Bening) meet when Grahame moves into an apartment in the first floor of Turner’s group house to prepare for a local theater production. Turner is immediately smitten as they dance like teenagers and sip on festive drinks in the middle of the day, sparks flying. Their chemistry is believable and at times endearing. Aging is palpably difficult for Grahame, and Turner makes her feel young and beautiful. During several scenes, she reacts (and overreacts) to comments about her age while Turner repairs her emotional wounds and stitches her back together. They are blissfully connected, and clearly compatible.

The core of their bond, from a psychological perspective, is their shared level of emotional maturity. In one especially painful scene, Turner learns from Grahame’s mother and sister that Grahame was outcast from Hollywood society when she divorced her second husband (director Nicholas Ray) and eventually married and had children with Ray’s son. [According to Hollywood lore, their affair began while Ray and Grahame were married and Grahame’s stepson was only thirteen years old.] In the scene, Grahame is in the other room as her mother and sister beg Turner to resist marrying Grahame no matter how much she begs. They assure Turner that another marriage would embarrass her family beyond the permanent damage already inflicted by her raucous musings.

Grahame’s intriguing real life backstory enhances the film. Despite their passion, viewers may sense that Grahame and Turner’s love seems vulnerable and may not have endured had Grahame’s illness not cut their relationship short. Nevertheless, the love story is a worthwhile and moving essay demonstrating that numerical age is much less relevant than maturity when it comes to love.

When falling in love generates anxiety, people can feel confused, alone and even defective. Most romances depicted in popular culture make it look easy. Even the term — “falling in love” – implies a degree of passivity: if you meet the right person, the rest of the love story will feel like a “happily ever after” experience that takes care of itself. But love stories are often much more awkward and uncomfortable than popular culture leads us to imagine.

As a therapist, I always appreciate it when I stumble across an unconventional love story that makes room for the reality that intimacy can feel extremely uncomfortable, especially for those who may crave a connection but who have more experience with isolation.

William Nicholson’s play “Shadowlands” was originally staged on Broadway in 1990 starring Nigel Hawthorne and Jane Alexander and was then produced as a memorable film starring Anthony Hopkins and Debra Winger. The play is most recently directed by Christa Scott-Reed in an off-Broadway revival at the Acorn Theater in New York City, running through January 7, 2018. Scott-Reed’s understated production demonstrates a believable unfolding of the unexpected and famed love story between C.S. Lewis and Joy Davidman.

C.S. Lewis, an elite intellectual and celebrated author for his magical books about the enchanted land of Narnia, possesses a much less animated personality than his stories. Lewis continues a correspondence with the poet Joy Davidman whose young son shares her passion for the Narnia series. Davidman is an abrasive New Yorker who obviously clashes with the etiquette and contained conventions of Lewis’ world. When Joy visits Lewis during her European vacation with her son, a quiet chemistry exists beneath the layers of a polite but energized friendship. Both characters demonstrate reservations and reticence. Their tentative body language and stiffness slows the progression of their romance. Both seem eager to replicate the ease of their correspondence with a human connection. But they seem noticeably more awkward in person than they felt during the openness and abandon of their comfortable ongoing correspondence.

In perhaps the most memorable scene of the play, they struggle to converse with intimacy, and admit that they feel extremely awkward and uncomfortable. In an attempt to buffer their distress, they decide to turn their backs from one another and speak as if they are corresponding through the mail.

In today’s culture, screens stand between romantic unions and relating in person can feel like much more challenging than texting and swiping. Shadowlands explores an important and under-acknowledged dimension of human relationships. The desire to feel a human connection drives behavior, but it can be much more work than popular culture teaches us to expect. Through the quiet and contained telling of this real life love story, a simple play captures an important and underexplored element of the human experience.

If a road-trip to New York city to check out the play is not realistic, the film is a compelling and worthwhile substitute exploring this true to life and memorable love story.

Manchester by the Sea, meticulously directed by Kenneth Lonergan, received 6 Academy Award nominations and Casey Affleck is considered a favored contender for best actor for his role as Lee Chandler, an isolated Bostonian janitor paralyzed by grief. Lee returns to his hometown, Manchester, to pick up the pieces after his brother Joe’s death from congestive heart failure. Lee’s first task after identifying the body is to head to his nephew Patrick’s hockey practice to break the news to sixteen year-old Patrick of his father’s passing. In a flashback to happier times several years ago, viewers watch Lee goof around with his young nephew on his Joe’s fishing boat. Lee joyfully mocks his big brother’s stiff demeanor and muses about why it might be preferable to Patrick to be raised by Lee instead of by his father. A young and self-possessed Patrick, while clearly bonded with his Uncle Lee, makes it clear that under any circumstances, cool factor not withstanding, he prefers life with his father Joe (Kyle Chandler).

Roughly a decade later, Patrick no longer has a choice in what was once a hypothetical laughing matter. Joe has named Lee as Patrick’s custodian and Patrick’s mother has abandoned the family long ago. The layers of loss compound and compile. The acting, writing, plot and landscape of this exquisite film earn its critical acclaim. Lonegran understands that grief forever transforms the griever.

From a psychological perspective, the mastery of the Manchester by the Sea is Lonegran’s ability to capture the most subtle, awkward, disorienting moments that punctuate and animate the grieving space. A cellphone rings mid-funeral. A gurney carrying the patient awkwardly flails and refuses lift into the ambulance despite the EMTs’ sincere efforts. Well meaning friends struggle to hear each other across a crowded room of funeral guests. Frozen chicken breasts refuse to stay in place and fall furiously from the freezer, suddenly sparking a series of sobs and a necessary cathartic release. These genuine moments animate the intimacy and sincerity between characters and punctuate a realistic and humbling tale of traumatic loss, grief, and love.

Grief forever transforms the griever. “I can’t beat it.” Lee explains to Patrick. Manchester by the Sea refuses gratuitous Hollywood endings in favor of realistic characters struggling to communicate. When they miss each other, scenes are simultaneously believable and difficult to watch. When they connect with authenticity, the poetry of the human condition comes alive and seems to jump off of the screen and into the heart.

Los Angeles glows as a magical, scenic backdrop to this whimsical, romantic whirlwind. Love is in the air – even when Mia and Sebastian first collide on the compressed, congested highway and Sebastian gives Mia the finger! Perhaps the finest throwback of the film is its dramatic limitation of cell phone use. When characters run late for dates or can’t find one another, they do not text or Google search. Instead they race around in high heels, drive through the night and use their imagination. The absence of technology amplifies the romantic tension. Viewers are left longing for a time when romantic narratives were not dumbed down by smartphones.

La La Land presents difficult questions about the relationship between professional integrity, financial security and conventional success.  Even more pressing is the duo’s provocative portrayal of the challenges of juggling professional opportunities and romantic love.  A common psychological challenge is explored – with every decision we gain things, but we also give things up in the process. Mia and Sebastian exude attraction and enjoy a snappy repartee.  Jazz music is cast as the film’s effervescent love language. Sebastian describes Jazz with gusto: “It’s conflict and it’s compromise and it’s very, very exciting!” These passionate words are as much about the love story as they are about the tunes, as the music eloquently supplies the film’s romantic metaphor.

When struggles related to breakups, work-life balance, anxiety and relationship elasticity present in therapy, the underlying resolution tends to center around emotional maturity. What exactly is emotional maturity? According to systems theory, it is the ability to be intimate with others while simultaneously experiencing one’s self as a truly grounded self. The ability to affirm one’s self without over-emphasizing what others might think is essential to emotional maturity. Sebastian is passionate about authentic jazz, but his professional nemesis (played by John Legend!) warns that jazz is dying and must be updated to suit modern sensibilities. Mia (an aspiring actress) is rejected in countless auditions and strains to summon the ego strength to continue. She creates a one-woman show and faces the possibility that no one will buy a ticket.

What makes this love-story rich and complex is the understanding that in order to sustain romantic intimacy, the psychological task is to navigate such daily struggles while remaining emotionally mature enough to be vulnerable in life, work and love. To do so, one must be able to affirm oneself without overemphasizing what others might think. What happens along the way is a captivating, unexpected tale about why it is worth it to go the extra mile for the one you love.

Improving communications and building self-esteem are inter-related goals; the stronger and more solid one’s sense of self, the more effective the communication will become. And improving communications leads to more satisfying relationships.

Director Denis Villeneuve’s recently released science fiction thriller Arrival celebrates the dynamic relationship between communication and self-esteem. Louise (Amy Adams) is a linguist recruited by the military to work in collaboration with Ian (Jeremy Renner) a top physicist. A series of alien ships have landed throughout the world, and Louise and Ian are called on to guide the US military’s attempt to communicate with the aliens. The aliens — whom Louise and Ian affectionally name Abbott and Costello — communicate through a complex series of characters, and Louise’s willingness to trust and make herself vulnerable creates a safe space for the aliens to open up and communicate with the fluidity that is necessary to begin to decipher their language.

While Louise and her team begin to decode several of their symbols and sentences, the US Military and the world at large continue to distrust the intentions of the alien creatures and often tend toward paranoia in their interpretations. For example, the aliens say “tool” — the military hears “weapon”.

This interplay of meticulous linguistic efforts to communicate also functions as a metaphor for themes therapists working with couples come across each day, session after session. As couples engage in therapy, one half of the couple often expresses a wish that the other half of the couple will finally develop the underlying belief that their intentions are good. “Please know I always have your back,” they might say, or “Can’t you assume that I’m doing the best I can?” These are frequent pleas that surface behind the closed doors of intimate communications. Nevertheless, sometimes the slightest variations in what is said can unintentionally bring back difficult memories, or words come across as harsh when that’s not the conscious intention. In Arrival, the military allows historical baggage from past debacles to lead them to assume the worst about the aliens. The military’s paranoia is similar to how an individual’s painful family history or failed past romantic relationships can get in the way of an otherwise promising communication and potential union.

Like many therapists, I encourage couples (and individuals) to push themselves to communicate through “I statements”. In other words, don’t say “You are so cold, you never hug me.” Instead, say “I could really use a hug right now.” Framing communication in terms of “I” instead of “you” increases the likelihood that requests will be met and feelings will be heard in a productive way. But the technical choice of words is somewhat superficial. By communicating through the use of the word I, a person is owning their part in the relationship — and therefore developing and demonstrating a strong sense of self. The communication style matters, but what matters most is how we experience ourselves and how we experience our relationships. This is reflected by the emotionally mature use of language. Louise is strong but vulnerable — tough but eloquent — and her solid self identity inspires Ian and those around her to eventually meet her on an elevated emotional and communicative level. When therapy works, it works on a similar trajectory to the one demonstrated in Arrival. Those with a desire to improve their relational skills and strengthen themselves in the process can benefit from the provocative and psychologically sophisticated messages of this film.