Lovesick

A patient in an open psychiatric ward in Denmark deals with his attachment to a nurse as he finds out that she will be leaving the facility the day after their New Year’s party.

Elias (Ruben) is sick. He has to live every day with his mental illness and deals with voices in his head, the urge to self-harm, and delusions on an almost constant basis. He also has the hots for his assigned nurse, Solveig (Henningson). Elias likes to play out the fantasy that he and Solveig will get it on at some point and this arouses him enough to see him through most of the days in the psychiatric ward. The fact that Solveig attends to him most days personally, as well as needing to be present in some of his most intimate moments, such as showering, helps feed this fantasy, and in her presence Elias makes himself as approachable and charming as he possibly can. On the day of the New Year’s party, however, Elias learns that this will be Solveig’s last shift, and so he determines to open his heart to her before his time runs out.

The fact that Elias has had to find this information out from a couple of the other patients, and not from Solveig herself, should really have told him something, but he has deliberately been dishonest about taking his meds recently and his thinking is not as straight as it should be. Still, Elias is ready to make his move and so he enlists the help of another patient to smarten himself up for the evening and then manoeuvres himself to sit next to Solveig at the party. Everything is set up for Elias to declare his love but unfortunately things do not go as well as he had planned.

Throughout writer/director Alexander Saul’s new short film, Lovesick, we get up close and personal with some of the more difficult moments of life on a psychiatric ward. We are party to the thoughts that constantly berate and confuse Elias in his own head, as well as bearing witness to moments of self-harm and self-abuse. There are also instances of friction between Elias and other patients which demonstrate the fragile balance which is so carefully kept inside the walls of the facility. Saul’s aim, however, is to also show the humanity which pours forth from these people and how their feelings, dreams and desires are no different from anybody else’s. He successfully manages this by showing us all aspects of the interactions which take place between residents and staff, and gently places the characters in situations which reveal their vulnerabilities.

There is a softness which resides over the entirety of Lovesick that speaks to the intentions of Saul in helping us identify with his characters. This can at times feel like the scenario, as well as the manifestations of mental illness, come across as tame with no major drama ever being involved, but really it is just an extension of how Saul is treating his subject. The inclusion of Frederikke (Lack), as someone who looks at Elias the way he looks at Solveig, helps show that there is more than one side to everyone’s story while also allowing Elias’ sympathetic character to emerge.

In terms of production, however, Lovesick has nothing to write home about. The writing is fine, if a bit simplistic, and the direction and photography are serviceable to the narrative. Nothing really stands out at you as being one way or the other in terms of quality and this feeling lasts with the viewer throughout the twenty-minute runtime. In his desire not to judge or impose historic stereotypes on his characters, Saul has forgotten to give his story any real heart to engage with. The actor’s jobs are very basic, with very little emotion seeping out, and Ellaha Lack as Frederikke is the only standout in a small, enclosed field.

While Lovesick does its best to humanise those with mental illness and share a real-life story which could be transposed to nearly anybody on the planet, it doesn’t do enough to separate its themes and ideas from just how interminably ordinary they really are, meaning that fundamentally nothing new or of substance is expressed in its telling.