Castille Landon Wants "Fear Of Rain" To Change The Way Mental Illness Is Portrayed In Film

"I think [schizophrenia] is the most stigmatized of mental illnesses, the most misunderstood, and the most misrepresented in film."

Courtesy of Lionsgate / Courtesy of Lionsgate

Despite the growing prevalence of mental illness in America — nearly 1 in 5 adults in the US are living with one — its depiction in film betrays an unwillingness to reckon with it.

Faced with the task of crafting mentally ill characters, writers often resort to crass hints (benzos discovered in the medicine cabinet), crude comedy (Asperger’s as a punchline), or a clunky designation as someone’s entire raison d’être (Rain Man). If the characters are protagonists, they’re victims. If they’re villains, it’s because of their sickness.

Fear of Rain, a new YA thriller written and directed by Castille Landon, is advocating for a better approach. The film — available now wherever you buy or rent movies — follows Rain Burroughs (Madison Iseman), a 16-year-old living with schizophrenia who begins to suspect that her teacher and next-door neighbor (Eugenie Bondurant) is concealing evidence of a terrible crime.

Anyone looking for a light Nancy Drew caper is in for a jolt: The film’s portrayal of mental illness is visceral, almost immersive. Landon makes ample use of jump scares, shrill voices, and shadowy figures to represent both the real and imagined dimensions of Rain’s world. The viewer can rarely be certain of whether what they’re seeing is “real,” and might find themselves running through the same checklist that Rain’s therapist has trained her to use whenever she suspects a hallucination: Is this possible? Could it happen here? Is anyone else reacting?

BuzzFeed spoke with writer-director Landon about her research for the film’s nuanced depiction of schizophrenia in its protagonist, and what she hopes audiences can take away from it.

Lionsgate

What was your inspiration for the film, and what motivated the choice to focus on schizophrenia?

I knew from the outset I wanted to make a film about mental illness, and particularly about a young woman dealing with mental illness, because it’s something that has run in the women of my family for several generations. I really zeroed in on schizophrenia because I think it’s the most stigmatized of mental illnesses, the most misunderstood, and the most misrepresented in film.

What are some of those misrepresentations?

That people with schizophrenia are necessarily violent. They’re almost always the antagonists. It’s also not just with schizophrenia; there are so many ways that mental illness is bastardized in films, down to when it’s like: “Oh, that’s a quirk!” You know, the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. So I really wanted to stay away from all of that with this.

You developed Rain Burroughs’ character largely from first-person accounts of young people living with schizophrenia. How did that influence your writing process in terms of character development?

I did a lot more research than I usually do. Most of the films that I write are just inspired by my life, or what I think is fun. This was a deep dive before I even started. And because what Rain sees is so woven into the plot, it needed to be accurate from the start. I reverse-engineered the plot from the character, I guess, going at it from “What is schizophrenia, and what are the misconceptions?” to “How can it be tipped on its head?” People don’t believe them. So what if we create this story where the thing is actually happening, and the character with schizophrenia doesn’t know whether to believe it?

Right. Thrillers and suspense films often play on our specific fears. Would you say Rain’s fears are those you intend for the audience, too?

Yeah, absolutely. I want the audience to experience everything that Rain experiences, which is not knowing if you can believe yourself, not knowing if what you see is reality. How often do we experience something and then, after the fact, we’ve spun the story into something that it’s maybe not? But that doesn’t make our experience of it any less valid.

Lionsgate

As a writer, how did you handle the abundance of firsthand stories and experiences you got while researching? Was there extra sensitivity in having to “kill your darlings”?

Actually, the film was originally called I Saw a Man With Yellow Eyes. I’d read that on a schizophrenia Reddit board, this “man with yellow eyes,” and that was the inception of the film. The man was the personification of Rain’s fear, and anytime she felt fear, she saw or heard him, so he was a pretty big character. But we ended up not using him because it was important that everything be photo-realistic in the film, and he just took us out of it. That’s the last thing I want, because I want the audience to be really immersed in the story. The thing with schizophrenia is, there are many different experiences of it. There is no one thing. So it was a matter of, now that we have all of these things on the table, what tells the story best?

How about as a director? How did you navigate choices between Rain’s literal visions and your creative one?

Every day, if not every shot, was very much a discussion about what it looked like through Rain’s eyes, as opposed to mine as a filmmaker. But it was easy on some level because I wrote her as an extension of myself. I think it would have been much more challenging had I not written the script.

I noticed the therapist in the film was named Dr. Pangloss — presumably after the character of the same name in Voltaire’s Candide, who believes that we’re living in the “best of all possible worlds.”

Something that I read a lot was, people with schizophrenia who are going to a therapist feel like maybe there’s an ulterior motive, or that there’s this glossing over, and I think Rain feels that towards Dr. Pangloss. “The best of all possible worlds” is the idea that you can just think your way out of something, or that positive affirmations can just change you. And yeah, they can to some extent, but when you’re dealing with mental illness, I’m not sure any amount of positive affirmations and therapy is necessarily going to change things. To me it’s like, the doctor’s name might not even be “Pangloss.” That’s just the way that Rain sees her.

Lionsgate

How does that philosophy square with Rain’s outlook on her own condition?

She’s realistic about it. She doesn’t see it as a negative, necessarily. It’s sort of a coming of age, embracing that this is what makes her “her.” And through Caleb, she’s able to see and get that confidence. It doesn’t mean she’s broken, it just means she’s different — just as any other person is different.

At certain points in the film, a character will use the word “crazy” or “insane” in a casual sense around Rain, which has come to be recognized as kind of problematic. What was behind the choice to have her be neutral towards that language?

There are instances where it’s called to attention, where the teacher says it and realizes she shouldn’t. But Rain also doesn’t want to call attention to herself. She’s a teenage girl — she’s really just trying to get through the day at school — and so whether she’s triggered or not, it’s something that she has to kind of just swallow. In the instance where the teacher uses it, it’s an accident because it is so prevalent in our language. And when she stops herself, it makes it even more of an awkward moment for Rain, who would just rather ignore it. Of course, Rain is cognizant of when it’s being used as a pejorative, and she does feel it when the girls at school say the things that they say. But she’s able to discern when the intent is to harm her and when the intent is casual.

Lionsgate

I read somewhere that this film is billed as a “mental illness thriller,” which feels like a much-needed expansion pack for the psychological thriller genre. Did you come up with that?

No! I wish I could claim that that was my own, but I didn’t. You can attribute it to me; I think it’s brilliant!

Well, what do you hope are some tropes of mental illness that get left in the thrillers of the 2010s?

Mentally ill people that are necessarily violent. Mentally ill villain versus neuro-typical protagonist. I wouldn’t want to limit someone from being a villain who has a mental illness, because, you know, I just don’t think that they should have any limitations! Just overall more diversity in how people are portrayed, whether they’re labeled or not.

What do you want audiences who aren’t living with schizophrenia to take away from Fear of Rain?

There’s a very negative slant on mental illness in movies and media, so I want for them to be able to watch something like this and think: a) This is more prevalent, b) My assumptions might be wrong, and c) I might actually know someone who is experiencing something like this. And that doesn’t mean that I need to be afraid of them, you know? That means I need to be compassionate towards them and try to see things from their perspective.

And I know this film is technically for younger audiences, so how about Gen Z?

Well, I hope it sparks a larger conversation. They’re quite a bit more open as it is, which is fantastic. But there’s something still that feels removed in terms of schizophrenia in particular. So I hope that they feel like that’s the next level. It’s not just embracing, you know, depression and anxiety and bipolar disorder. It also extends to people that are dealing with more severe forms of mental illness. It’s all under the same umbrella in the sense that we need to treat all of it with compassion, and also get people help that they need, so that they’re not having to live a dark existence.

Fear of Rain is available now wherever you buy or rent movies. And if you happened to read this article before watching the film, catch the trailer below.

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Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.