This film gets a 10 mainly because of its excellent portrayal of the mentally ill. People with OCD are quite normal in most respects, except when one encounters their particular obsessions. Charlotte runs a respectable health food store/organic bakery and Mark has a successful career as an architect until his wife Stevie leaves him. They're both quite charming people if one overlooks Mark's tics and Charlotte's warp-speed manner of speech. The trauma of Mark's separation brings his OCD and Tourette's syndrome out into the open. "Normal" society then rejects Mark along with his best friend and Stevie he becomes an outcast in all senses of the word. That's the way it works in the real world. The film is mainly about the struggles of its main characters but also about how the "normal" world deals with those who struggle.
For example, there's the incompetent pill-pushing shrink who misdiagnoses OCD and Tourette's as clinical depression, even though I recognized Mark's problems 10 minutes into the film. People who have lived with these problems will vouch for the veracity of the shrink and for the portrayal of the employer without patience to try and make Mark fit in.
One other reason I liked this film is that at last the British have made a film that doesn't need subtitles to understand what the characters are saying. That's probably intentional as the movie has such a universal appeal. It could have been made anywhere in the Western World without changing a single line of dialog.
I highly recommend seeing this picture either on DVD or on TV, whether or not you need to deal with the mentally ill.
For example, there's the incompetent pill-pushing shrink who misdiagnoses OCD and Tourette's as clinical depression, even though I recognized Mark's problems 10 minutes into the film. People who have lived with these problems will vouch for the veracity of the shrink and for the portrayal of the employer without patience to try and make Mark fit in.
One other reason I liked this film is that at last the British have made a film that doesn't need subtitles to understand what the characters are saying. That's probably intentional as the movie has such a universal appeal. It could have been made anywhere in the Western World without changing a single line of dialog.
I highly recommend seeing this picture either on DVD or on TV, whether or not you need to deal with the mentally ill.