Borderline Movies

Bumping this thread as I have been looking for movies to watch.

It's interesting how almost all of the characters with BPD are women. Only a few are men. And of those, most are villains.


On edit:

Here's some movies with male characters who seem to have BPD:

Mad Max series: kind of a crossover here with PTSD. After Max loses his wife and child, he never emotionally bonds to anyone else fully. However, he never quite loses his conscience, either, and so he goes from place to place helping people despite himself. He is also manipulative and thinking ahead of other characters without ever showing his hand.

In fact, a lot of Mel Gibson movies seem to have BPD-ish characters: Lethal Weapon and Conspiracy Theory come to mind. Mel himself has a very divided public image-- on the one hand, an anti-Semitic, misogynist jerk, on the other hand a beloved actor and director who connects with the audience on a profound level. I wouldn't be surprised if he has BPD, among other problems.

Zelig: this is a Woody Allen movie that I haven't seen for a long time. It's basically a faux-documentary about a guy who is a human chameleon, and appears in different places in history as different personas. As I remember, it suggests BPD more than MPD/DID, although I could be wrong.

Forrest Gump: another one about a guy who is a little bit of everything, in every place, but never quite connects.


Those are just a few off the top of my head...

-- Wed Jul 06, 2011 10:05 pm --

Some more:

The Truman Show: elements of a BPD breakdown-- paranoia, depersonalization, feelings of unreality, trying to trick or manipulate people into revealing their true selves, feeling that 'no one believes me', all kinds of boundary issues. Of course the movie is a political metaphor, more than a psychological one (Truman is actually not mentally ill, just being deceived.) Sort of a Gaslight kind of thing.

Taxi Driver: Travis starts out as a troubled, but sensitive character. Because of his inability to gauge social situations and say and do appropriate things, he can't connect to people and loses touch with reality. In the end, he turns to violence as a way to redeem his otherwise empty life.

One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest: I'm not sure if Nicholson's character has BPD, but his experiences are pretty familiar to anyone who has been through the mental health system. He becomes locked into a battle of manipulation and control with the doctors and nurses, but in the end, he gets medicated and electroshocked into submission.

The Sorcerer's Apprentice: classic Disney short with Mickey Mouse as the junior wizard who sets events in motion but doesn't know how to stop them. A metaphor for the BPD process of attempting to control and manipulate situations, only to have things get worse and worse, leading to more desperate manipulation, etc.

Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver definitely had borderline traits, but I think he more likely had Aspergers Syndrome. Now in the movie Raging Bull, Jake La Motta definitely has BPD, he's a classic borderline personality. As for Girl, Interrupted, Susanna was not borderline at all, she didn't have any mental illnesses, that's the whole point of the movie. She was perfectly mentally healthy but she was having a hard time because of her age and her time period she grew up in.

Agree with what other people are saying about Girl Interrupted.. you can see BPD traits in all the other characters .. particularly Angelinas.. Winonas character is pretty lousy .. havent read the book though.. want to

You can see "borderline characteristics" in every person in the world if you want to, but it means nothing. Most people in the world are content to accept that everyone is different than others and that does not mean that they all have a mental illness. No one in the world is normal by the theory of normality, the world doesn't work that way. Anything out of the ordinary people can point to and claim that it's a sign of mental illness but it's not, it's just part of being human, we are complicated and we are all individuals. We may as well claim that every person in the world has a personality disorder because they all have various personalities.

To be fair though, I never did read the book Girl, interrupted. Maybe she was mentally ill in real life but they sure didn't show it in the movie

There seems to be a lot of slippage between ASPD and borderline in these comments. I'd like some maintenance of a distinction.

I think a pretty good example of a borderline character that hasn't been mentioned is the character "Chloe" in the movie "Chloe.

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... %28film%29

It's more of an independent film with Liam Neeson and Julian Moore but it is really quite good.

Would Tony Montana in Scarface qualify? He definitely had problems with recklessness, compulsive spending, substance abuse, fear of betrayal/abandonment and placing people on pedestals (his wife, sister, best friend) and quickly shifting in his opinion of them from love to hate. And lots and lots of rage-fueled outbursts and bouts of depression.

Jimbocho wrote:Would Tony Montana in Scarface qualify? He definitely had problems with recklessness, compulsive spending, substance abuse, fear of betrayal/abandonment and placing people on pedestals (his wife, sister, best friend) and quickly shifting in his opinion of them from love to hate. And lots and lots of rage-fueled outbursts and bouts of depression.

Good point, I think you're right. Remember at the very end of the movie where he just flies off the handle completely and acts like he has a death wish. Tony may seem more antisocial but I think he came down as much more emotionally disturbed and more borderline ultimately.

Black Swan ?

Did you watch Black Swan? She was psychotic, not borderline.