Sunny intervals and showers - living with bipolar disorder

Author / Creator

Levitt, Jonathan Goodman

Available as

Online

Summary

Dr. Allan Levi is suspended from work and in trouble at home due to his episodes of manic depressive illness (Bipolar Disorder). Filmed in the year after Allan's diagnosis, Sunny Intervals is an in...

Dr. Allan Levi is suspended from work and in trouble at home due to his episodes of manic depressive illness (Bipolar Disorder). Filmed in the year after Allan's diagnosis, Sunny Intervals is an intimate and ironic portrait of a marriage and a family in crisis. Endearing yet self-obsessed, Allan leaves a career as a medical researcher and university professor to start a business selling model airplanes .His wife, Jackie, a doctor, struggles to come to terms with the unexpected role of being a "caregiver" for a mentally ill husband. But is Allan's increasingly frenetic lifestyle evidence of illness, eccentricity or simply hard work? An observational documentary, the film depicts one man's -- and one family's -- life with warmth, humor, and poignancy. Rather than being told what to think, viewers are given the opportunity to draw their own conclusions about the nature of truth, reality, and madness. We experience the often dramatic reality of living with manic depression -- and also the surprising consequences of simply being labeled mentally ill.

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