Anxiety – Log 6

Short film 

Directed and written by Aaliyah Larson

Introduction

Anxiety is a short film directed by Aaliyah Larson about a girl named Madelyn who is left at home by herself for the night. She plans to go out with her friends but every-time she tries to make a decision, there is a  clone of herself (anxiety) telling her why she shouldn’t. This short film is obviously to help people understand what people with anxiety feel everyday. I chose to do this film because this short film really showed me how intense anxiety can be, the thought of putting myself down on every decision I try to make would just make me feel sad.

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Anxiety in this film was represented by a clone of the main character. This clone figure was interesting because it showed a lot of meaning behind it.  What I mean by this is that because the clone is representing anxiety,  and the clone is of the main character, we can assume that the girl’s anxiety actually comes from putting herself down rather than actual people around her. This tells us that anxiety is something we inflict on  ourselves, and we see examples of this throughout the film. For example when Madelyn (the main character) is putting makeup on to go out and hangout with her friends anxiety says, “…Did you actually think that makeup was going to make you look attractive…”, it’s like the main character (Madelyn) is pretending there’s someone else in the room with her (anxiety) , and pretending they are saying all this bad stuff about her. Where really, it’s just herself. In the film anxiety always tends to show up as the girl is trying to make a decision about something and tends to tell the girl not to take the risk. This causes her to doubt herself or send her into a spiral of negative thoughts. I find decision making hard enough on my own, but having another side of me telling me to take the easy way out every-time and not take any risks would make my life miserable, and I think a lot of society would agree with me. By the end of the film the girl begins to ignore anxiety and just do what she wants. When this happens anxiety tends to almost panic and have it’s own meltdown. Like it’s having one last go at trying to put you down, but if you overcome it and walk out that door (as the main character does during this scene), it’s the most satisfying feeling.. I think the director is trying to show us this satisfaction of overcoming anxiety in her film. Trying to influence people who have that problem to fight it. I think if I was faced with it, after watching this film, I’d try to beat it just like the girl did.

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Don’t second guess yourself on something you’re doing. Whether it’s what to wear, to go to a friends, or even just making a sandwich. I think this film not only shows us how anxiety acts and feels, but it also shows us how to avoid it. Throughout the film  you see Madelyn come across any decisions where she is sure on what to do. This is where the director chooses to bring in anxiety. For example when Madelyn is looking at herself in the mirror, she is wondering whether she wants to wear something. That’s when anxiety appears and says… “that shirt definitely makes you look fat”. This shows us anxiety tends to influence your decisions by telling you why it’s a bad decision using things you feel self conscious about. After all anxiety is in your head.. In the film we see the main character come across multiple decisions that are then influenced negatively by anxiety. During the end of the film however she begins to ignore anxieties, influence and do her own thing. I think the director has done this purposely to show us that it isn’t that hard to make simple decisions like that, and that the best way to combat anxiety is to not let it get the chance to come out. That we can do this just by being fully confident in whatever we are doing, and not worrying about what others would think.

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The hardest challenge for the main character was after being bullied by her anxiety for so long, she ended up giving up going out with her friends. She came to a self realisation that she was to ugly and boring, that her friends wouldn’t want her to come out, they just wanted her to come out of pity. She let anxiety get to her. Giving up is one of the hardest things to do, and I think a-lot of society would agree with me, but after thinking of yourself in such a negative way constantly, your brain won’t be able to think of any positive things, sending you on a downward spiral of negative thoughts. Making it very hard to keep fighting it when you don’t see anything positive. However the main character manages later on to fight the pain of all this negativity being expressed by her anxiety, and get over it. Watching this made me feel good, for someone with anxiety, watching someone else beat it like that would give them hope that theory could overcome it I believe. It also showed me how strong of a character Madelyn was and how strong you have to be to pull yourself out of a hole like that. I think this challenge the main character went through was a great lesson for society, showing us we can always come back to ourselves no matter how upset we get, that we just need to stay strong and not let our negative thoughts get the best of us, always look at the bright side of things.. 

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Anxiety, I believe was the perfect name for this film. The entire film is based on a girl overcoming her anxiety. Anxiety needs to be in the film otherwise the whole storyline is pointless as the girl has nothing to overcome.  Not only that but anxiety is a global issue. It makes people overthink and stress out which is bad for your brain and can lead to depression which is even worse. The director has noticed this problem and created this film almost to show people suffering from anxiety that there are people out there with the same problems and trying to overcome it just like you. Just trying to bring people suffering back to reality and see that they aren’t the only ones with this problem. It also drives the whole story. Without anxiety this film wouldn’t work out, for example when Madelyn is trying to get ready to leave the house anxiety says things like, “did you actually think that makeup was going to make you look attractive” and “That outfit, definitely makes you look fat”. All these negative thoughts build up to the point where we feel bad for Madelyn. Without us feeling bad for her, the story wouldn’t bring up any emotion, making the story pretty bland just a girl going out for a night. It is the challenge that Madelyn has to overcome which makes this story interesting, and that problem is anxiety. Therefore I think anxiety was a great name for the film as it showed us what the film was all about without spoiling too much. 

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I would recommend this film to  people over 60 years of age. This is because according to google people over 60 years old are more likely to develop symptoms of anxiety than younger people.  For the older generation, we know they have probably had their peak in terms of strength and health and are now starting to decrease, as they are getting older. Meaning they are a-lot weaker then they were. Something like anxiety could affect them horribly and cause them to get even weaker. It is proven that constant stress can age people quicker. For older people I think they will want to stay young as they can.  I think if older people battling anxiety were to watch a film like this and see that it is possible to overcome anxiety, it could give them hope to overcome it, and could then live longer happier lives. For example… (Anxiety)“They don’t want you there, you can’t just go.”(Madelyn) “Watch me”. Seeing Madelyn completely snob her anxiety and walk away, made even me feel happy. I think for someone battling anxiety they would feel more hope watching someone else being able to overcome it. I think people over 60 and suffering from anxiety should see this short film to give them that hope they need so they can overcome it and live a happier healthier lives.