Sybil

Last night I watched Sybil -- I hadn't seen it since I was a kid. (I can't believe my parents let me watch it!) It is so creepy and actually surprisingly well done. I don't quite know what I had expected, but I really got into it. Yes, it's got a little of a cheesy/dated quality to it, but it was totally engrossing.

The story is well known (in fact I read the book when I was a kid too), about a woman with multiple personalities who was horribly tortured by her sadistic and crazy mother as a child.

Sally Field plays the part so well that it was painful to watch, and Joanne Woodward was calm and warm and nurturing and patient as the psychiatrist/good mother who helps her get well.

The ending comes on kind of quickly, and it's wrapped up a little too neatly with a cathartic scene at the end. But it was still satisfying.

I feel like I should be critical of the doctor-as-savior thing (and really it was kind of unbelievable that this woman spent all her time and personal energy on one patient who never pays her), but I couldn't help being sucked into the ideal therapeutic relationship and I kind of bought it hook line and sinker...