Netflix Loves to Romanticize Mental Health
‘All the Bright Places’ succeeds where ’13 Reasons Why’ failed, but cultural depictions of mental health still need work
The promotional material for Netflix’s new young adult novel adaptation, All the Bright Places, would have you think it’s adding another sappy romance film to its collection. The film’s cover art features two smitten teenagers in a forehead-to-forehead embrace, their noses close enough for the pair to kiss. It’s a recognizable tableau indistinguishable from the latest Nicholas Sparks’ adaptation. Not surprisingly, people have mistaken the movie as a new teen love story. A Glamour U.K. headline, for example, declared the film “The rom-com we need in our lives.” That’s not quite right: All the Bright Places is a soaring love story with witty characters, but it isn’t a rom-com.
The film follows Violet Markey (played by Elle Fanning), a high school senior reeling with survivors’ guilt after the death of her sister, and Theodore Finch (Justice Smith), a 17-year-old struggling with bipolar disorder and manic depression. Their conditions are not named in the film or anywhere in its promotional materials. Instead, Netflix’s one-liner for All the Bright Places is “two teens facing personal struggles form a powerful bond as they embark on a cathartic…
