Hackney Therapist Kelly Field Shares Thoughts on To Love A Narcissist

Curious and emboldened by what she said about casual misuse of “narcissist” making her “go feral” in her witty contribution to The Writer’s Gauntlet a couple of weeks ago, I invited Hackney Therapist Kelly Field to watch To Love A Narcissist and share her thoughts about the film. If you’ve not already seen it, please DON’T read on! This post contains spoilers. If you’ve seen it or you’re the type of person who always reads the last chapter first, scroll down to read what she wrote…

“To Love a Narcissist was beautifully shot and very well cast. The performances felt convincing, and there was something almost claustrophobic about how closely the film stayed with the central couple. We spend so much time inside the intensity of their relationship that, at points, I found myself feeling slightly trapped in there with them — which I suspect may well have been intentional.

What interested me most, though, was that for much of the film I genuinely couldn’t work out which of them was supposed to be the narcissist. I actually liked that ambiguity. Both characters could be controlling, both struggled to trust the other, and both behaved in ways that were difficult, selfish or hurtful. It felt much more like watching two flawed people caught in a pretty unhealthy dynamic than watching one person love “a narcissist.”

That was why I felt a little disappointed when the film eventually seemed to resolve the question by locating the narcissism firmly in the woman. I’m not sure the character I’d been watching quite supported that conclusion. She was certainly avoidant at times, could be selfish and withholding, and wasn’t always easy to sympathise with. But those things aren’t necessarily narcissism, and I didn’t feel I’d seen enough of the more defining qualities associated with narcissistic personality to make the label feel convincing.

In fact, I came away with the slightly uncomfortable feeling that the character herself had been somewhat gaslit by the narrative. A complicated and not always likeable woman had, in the end, been given a label that seemed to explain her behaviour more neatly than the film itself had done. I found myself wondering whether I would have read the character differently had she been a man.

Perhaps my biggest question on leaving the film was what I was ultimately meant to take from it. If the ambiguity was deliberate — if we’re supposed to question who is controlling whom, how unreliable our perceptions become inside intimate relationships, or even how readily we reach for the word “narcissist” to explain difficult behaviour — then I found that really interesting. But the ending seemed to close down some of that ambiguity rather than leave me sitting with it.

There was a lot I admired about the film, particularly the performances, the intimacy of the filmmaking and the uncomfortable atmosphere it created. I just found myself wishing it had trusted some of its own complexity a little more. For me, the relationship was considerably more interesting than the diagnosis.”

https://www.hackneytherapist.com

https://thehooghlyreview.com/sadie-kaye-vs-kelly-field