In Two Minds is another episode of The Wednesday Play directed by Ken Loach for the BBC, this time written by David Mercer. It concerns a young woman with schizophrenia, both in terms of her relationship with her family and her subsequent hospital admission and treatment, and it won't surprise anyone that it's rather harrowing fare.
Anna Cropper plays the lead role of Kate Winter and gives an impressively convincing performance, even if the depiction of schizophrenia as written isn't entirely convincing, a fact that reviewers at the time noted. George A. Cooper plays Kate's henpecked but loving father, whilst Helen Booth plays her disapproving, overbearing mother. A key feature of the script is the suggestion throughout that Mrs Winter's stern disapproval of her daughter - and especially the pressure she placed her under to have an abortion - is a cause of Kate's mental illness, reflecting a then-recently published and therefore topical theory by Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing. Having been influenced by Laing's theory, Mercer's script predictably subscribes to it, with a resulting depiction of a deeply toxic (and entirely plausible) family relationship: with Booth's convincingly awful Mrs Winter has a poisonous, insidious effect on her daughter, and it is telling that Mr Winter becomes less sympathetic in the second half of the episode, as though gradually forced to submit to his wife's relentless opinions. Adding to the dysfunctional nature of the family, Christine Hargreaves' Mary Winter - Kate's sister - clearly struggles with, and is conflicted by, her sister's illness, although Mercer lacks the time to really explore her character and the relationship between the siblings.
In Two Minds is Loach's first television work to be filmed entirely on location, which benefits the fact that the episode is written in a docudrama format, presented as a faux documentary with Brian Phelan's psychiatrist providing narration and various characters interviewed on camera (notably, there's no incidental score). That said, Loach doesn't shoot it like a conventional documentary, making much more use of close-ups during interviews than one might expect from a real documentary. Thus, the camera often pans around the scenery whilst people are talking to it, and there s some use of handheld cameras, and scenes shot inside cars. The result is an odd hybrid feeling that doesn't necessarily benefit the production. However, it does make the transition to the second half, which is written and shot much more like a conventional drama, that little bit smoother.
The change comes when Kate is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and Mercer and Loach take the same approach as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in depicting psychiatric hospitals as terrifying, dehumanising places staffed by tyrannical nurses. When Kate arrives at the hospital, the nurse she meets is shot from a low angle, making her appear to loom over her. The transition from faux documentary is complete: Kate's scene with George Innes' Paul Morris shows the pair talking from multiple angles; Kate's subsequent conversation with a nurse is shot entirely from Kate's POV.
Once admitted (or rather committed), Kate is blamed for her own state of mind even by Patrick Barr's Consultant and as reviewers noted at the time, the play ends on a hopeless note, with no solution to Kate's problems. Reflecting the treatment of the time, Kate is subjected to electric shock therapy, even as one of the Consultant's students asks if it actually does anything other than "shake the patient up". The credits roll over the students' challenging the Consultant's conventional views on the causes of and prognosis for schizophrenia, a damning critique of psychiatry at the time, which reflected those of Laing. In Two Minds is flawed, but powerful; if Loach's hybrid approach to the material doesn't entirely work, it's uneven visuals end up reflecting the unsettled nature of its protagonist's state of mind. Clearly, the material made an impact on the director: he would later remake the play as a feature film, Family Life.
Anna Cropper plays the lead role of Kate Winter and gives an impressively convincing performance, even if the depiction of schizophrenia as written isn't entirely convincing, a fact that reviewers at the time noted. George A. Cooper plays Kate's henpecked but loving father, whilst Helen Booth plays her disapproving, overbearing mother. A key feature of the script is the suggestion throughout that Mrs Winter's stern disapproval of her daughter - and especially the pressure she placed her under to have an abortion - is a cause of Kate's mental illness, reflecting a then-recently published and therefore topical theory by Scottish psychiatrist R. D. Laing. Having been influenced by Laing's theory, Mercer's script predictably subscribes to it, with a resulting depiction of a deeply toxic (and entirely plausible) family relationship: with Booth's convincingly awful Mrs Winter has a poisonous, insidious effect on her daughter, and it is telling that Mr Winter becomes less sympathetic in the second half of the episode, as though gradually forced to submit to his wife's relentless opinions. Adding to the dysfunctional nature of the family, Christine Hargreaves' Mary Winter - Kate's sister - clearly struggles with, and is conflicted by, her sister's illness, although Mercer lacks the time to really explore her character and the relationship between the siblings.
In Two Minds is Loach's first television work to be filmed entirely on location, which benefits the fact that the episode is written in a docudrama format, presented as a faux documentary with Brian Phelan's psychiatrist providing narration and various characters interviewed on camera (notably, there's no incidental score). That said, Loach doesn't shoot it like a conventional documentary, making much more use of close-ups during interviews than one might expect from a real documentary. Thus, the camera often pans around the scenery whilst people are talking to it, and there s some use of handheld cameras, and scenes shot inside cars. The result is an odd hybrid feeling that doesn't necessarily benefit the production. However, it does make the transition to the second half, which is written and shot much more like a conventional drama, that little bit smoother.
The change comes when Kate is admitted to a psychiatric hospital, and Mercer and Loach take the same approach as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest in depicting psychiatric hospitals as terrifying, dehumanising places staffed by tyrannical nurses. When Kate arrives at the hospital, the nurse she meets is shot from a low angle, making her appear to loom over her. The transition from faux documentary is complete: Kate's scene with George Innes' Paul Morris shows the pair talking from multiple angles; Kate's subsequent conversation with a nurse is shot entirely from Kate's POV.
Once admitted (or rather committed), Kate is blamed for her own state of mind even by Patrick Barr's Consultant and as reviewers noted at the time, the play ends on a hopeless note, with no solution to Kate's problems. Reflecting the treatment of the time, Kate is subjected to electric shock therapy, even as one of the Consultant's students asks if it actually does anything other than "shake the patient up". The credits roll over the students' challenging the Consultant's conventional views on the causes of and prognosis for schizophrenia, a damning critique of psychiatry at the time, which reflected those of Laing. In Two Minds is flawed, but powerful; if Loach's hybrid approach to the material doesn't entirely work, it's uneven visuals end up reflecting the unsettled nature of its protagonist's state of mind. Clearly, the material made an impact on the director: he would later remake the play as a feature film, Family Life.