Grief, Madness, and Crises of Masculinity in Mind-Game Films

Book excerpt: This book analyzes a cycle of early twenty-first-century mind-game films and TV series in which male protagonists retreat into fantasies, dreams, or hallucinations as a means of coping with grief and guilt following the death of a loved one. Discussing films like Memento, Inception, and Shutter Island alongside the TV series Mr. Robot, among others, Rosalind Sibielski highlights how the construction of alternate realities allows the protagonists to work through bereavement and past trauma. Sibielski also argues that, as part of this process, the protagonists not only find themselves questioning their memories and what they believe to be true about their identities, but they are also forced to reevaluate who they are as men and the way that they define their manhood. Finally, Grief, Madness, and Crises of Masculinity in Mind-Game Films examines these stories of intersecting crises of reality and crises of masculinity within the context of millennial culture wars in the US over the way that manhood is, can be, or should be enacted.