BY ISAAC MICHAEL DONOVAN ’19

As both a person who struggles with mental illness and a film studies major, I have often found that depictions of mental illness in film fall short of portraying its actualities and the lives of those who experience it. However, the 1942 film “Now, Voyager,” starring Bette Davis (“The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex”), is one of the most accurate portrayals of mental illness I have seen to date. It is shocking to think that a classic Hollywood film could ever succeed in portraying mental illness  — a taboo subject even today — and do so in a progressive way. Davis excels in capturing the struggles of mental illness and the long journey towards self-determination and self-understanding.