‘That Way Madness Lies’ Film Review: Doc Director Takes an Up Close and Personal Look at Her Brother’s Mental Illness
Sandra Luckow takes us through the harrowing ups and downs of mental issues, and how the medical and legal establishments don’t help enough
Monica Castillo | December 12, 2018 @ 10:24 AM
Last Updated: December 12, 2018 @ 11:23 AM
First Run Features
As a society, we do a terrible job of talking about mental illness. We do a worse job caring for people struggling to recover from their illness or to manage their symptoms. In Sandra Luckow’s personal documentary, “That Way Madness Lies,” viewers get to see just how ill-equipped healthcare and law enforcement officials are at helping some of their most vulnerable populations.
Sandra and her brother Duanne grew up in the Pacific Northwest in the ’80s. The documentary dotes on these fond memories and photos of family ski trips near Mount St. Helens, and how Duanne’s love of film helped inspire Sandra to pick up a camera. The four members of the family were all creative in their own way: their father, Gerald, liked to restore cars, which Duanne later made his business. Their mom, Dolores, spent her free time making miniature homes and models. Before Sandra dove into the world of filmmaking, she went through a ventriloquist phase.
Over the course of the film, Sandra asks various questions in her voiceover narration as her brother’s illness progresses. What was the “line between creativity and crazy?” Is he still harmless? How much more can she take of her brother’s harassing emails, his involuntary commitment, astronomical hospital bills and hidden secrets?
Not all of Sandra’s questions are answered, and her uncertainty in these moments is palpable. They’re the musings of a person looking to help their loved one and not knowing how to do so. Her voice carries hints of frustration, fear and so much pain. As Sandra’s film damningly shows, there’s no playbook for how to deal with a loved one’s severe mental illness in our complicated healthcare system, and the law only really shows up when things get dangerous.
Part of Sandra’s problem is that Duanne defies classification, alternating between periods of peace and dramatic chaos with little warning — or perhaps warning signs that every one of his loved ones missed. There’s a friend who tries to help him, who ends up finding the police at his door. Duanne’s parents are in shock when they learn he’s been conned out of thousands by a shady email spammer in Nigeria. It’s just as painful to watch Duanne descend from a willing participant in his sister’s documentary to threatening her and upending the family’s lives.
As he retreats further into conspiracy theories and obsessions with women who don’t know him, Duanne’s voice disappears from the documentary, becoming a stranger in his own movie. It’s a sense of what Sandra loses in her life, and his lack of participation somewhat hobbles the second half of the “Madness.” He becomes a mystery both to those around him and to the audience.
While Sandra’s voice-over narration quickly guides the viewer through years of a complicated story and cyclical trips to mental state hospitals, it can feel like the film is leading the audience too forcefully. It’s possible to ask too many questions or to offer too many details that lead viewers away from the main subject, Duanne.
The documentary’s use of family photos, Duanne’s DIY movies, video diaries and Sandra’s present-day interviews reveals a bigger picture than just the lives of the Luckow family. “That Way Madness Lies” is very much about the isolation, insecurity and regret family members feel when their loved one takes a turn for the worst. It’s also very interested in looking at how terribly easy it is for people to fall through the cracks every day.
Sandra also interviews a number of Duanne’s friends to get a fuller picture of her now-reluctant subject. While the siblings’ father remains mostly tight-lipped about his son’s illness, Sandra’s conversations with her mom become something of a turning point in the film. She’s forced to stand up to her son’s demands, even as she admits she never saw any reason to get him help when he was younger or when he was in his 30s and still living with his parents.
Near the start of the film, Sandra proposes this film project to be a way for her and her estranged brother to bond. Those early scenes end up being some of the happiest in the film, something we didn’t know to appreciate before it disappeared. Aside from a few technical choices, like heavy narration or so many travel shots out a plane window, the documentary’s narrative is a compelling story that’s full of so many emotions. Its uncertainty makes it a gripping watch, yet the film’s introspection also has a profound effect that doesn’t turn it into a message movie.
Over the course of the film, the focus evolves from just following Duanne and his illness to the journey of two siblings in this new stage of their lives. In its modest efforts, “That Way Madness Lies” embraces a kind of sensitive nuance you don’t always see in depictions of mental illness in the movies.
15 Top Grossing Documentaries at the Box Office, From 'An Inconvenient Truth' to 'Fahrenheit 9/11' (Photos)
Documentaries are rarely big money makers, but they can have the power to influence change and motivate people to action in a way narrative films cannot. So when a documentary does make a splash at the box office, it's an even bigger surprise. This list of the top-15 grossing documentaries ever is an interesting mix of political, nature and concert docs, and several of them likewise went on to win Oscars and critical acclaim. All numbers are domestic totals via Box Office Mojo.
Warner Bros./National Geographic Films/Paramount Classics
15. "They Shall Not Grow Old" (2018) - $17.9 million
Director Peter Jackson went to painstaking lengths to digitally restore and transform 100-year-old archival footage for his powerful documentary on World War I. Jackson restored color and sound to the Great War, something that was previously only known through black and white silent film. The documentary performed well in part because of a release that even transformed the footage into 3D.
Warner Bros.
14. "Oceans" (2010) - $19.4 million
You'll see a lot of Disneynature documentaries on this list. Pierce Brosnan narrates this 2010 documentary filmed across the world's oceans.
Disneynature
13. "Bowling for Columbine" (2002) - $21.5 million
Michael Moore's provocative documentary about American gun violence (and one of his best) won the Oscar for Best Documentary and broke international box office records for a documentary in 2002.
United Artists
12. "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" (2018) - $22.8 million
Morgan Neville's portrait of Fred Rogers and "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" proved to be a crowd-pleasing hit in the summer of 2018 because of the absolute niceness at its heart. Neville in his film explains that Fred Rogers was the rare person who really did not have a dark side, and in "Won't You Be My Neighbor?" it shows.
Jim Judkis / Focus Features
11. "An Inconvenient Truth" (2006) - $24.1 million
Davis Guggenheim's documentary spotlighting former Vice President Al Gore's plea to alert the world to the effects of global warming and climate change went on to win two Oscars and earn a sequel.
Paramount Classics
10. "Sicko" (2007) - $24.5 million
Another Michael Moore movie to crack the list, "Sicko" was Moore's look at the healthcare industry in America compared to other nations, with Moore sailing sick veterans down to Cuba to receive the care they couldn't have had at home.
Lionsgate
9. "Katy Perry: Part of Me" (2012) - $25.3 million
This 2012 concert movie followed Katy Perry on her California Dreams World Tour.
Paramount Pictures
8. "One Direction: This Is Us" (2013) - $28.8 million
"Super Size Me" filmmaker Morgan Spurlock directed this concert doc about the then wildly popular British boy group.
TriStar
7. "Chimpanzee" (2012) - $28.9 million
Tim Allen narrated this Disneynature doc about a three-month old chimp separated from his flock and adopted by another grown male.
Disneynature
6. "Earth" (2007) - $32 million
The first of Disneynature's documentaries, "Earth" was a theatrical version of the popular "Planet Earth" miniseries from 2006. "Earth" was finally given a stateside theatrical release in 2009.
Disneynature
5. "2016: Obama's America" (2012) - $33.4 million
Dinesh D'Souza's anti-Obama documentary speculated about where the country would be if Obama won a second term in office in 2012.
Getty Images
4. "Michael Jackson's This Is It" (2009) - $72 million
The footage in "This Is It" comes from a behind-the-scenes look at preparation for Michael Jackson's 50 shows at London's O2 Arena. It wasn't originally meant to be made into a film, but it provided an intimate look at Jackson in his final days.
Getty Images
3. "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never" (2011) - $73 million
The Biebs holds the spot for the highest-grossing concert film ever and the documentary with the biggest opening weekend of all time.
Paramount Pictures
2. "March of the Penguins" (2005) - $77.4 million
People sure love penguins. Morgan Freeman narrates the nature documentary that opened on just four screens but soon spread into a nationwide hit.
National Geographic Films
1. "Fahrenheit 9/11" (2004) - $119.1 million
Michael Moore's scathing documentary about President George W. Bush and the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks is the highest-grossing documentary of all time and it isn't even close. The film won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival. Opening at over $23 million, the movie at the time opened higher than any other documentary had ever grossed in its lifetime. Moore followed up the film with a documentary about the 2016 election and Donald Trump, titled "Fahrenheit 11/9," which refers to the day after he was elected.
Miramax
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Michael Moore, Disneynature and several concert films top the list
Documentaries are rarely big money makers, but they can have the power to influence change and motivate people to action in a way narrative films cannot. So when a documentary does make a splash at the box office, it's an even bigger surprise. This list of the top-15 grossing documentaries ever is an interesting mix of political, nature and concert docs, and several of them likewise went on to win Oscars and critical acclaim. All numbers are domestic totals via Box Office Mojo.