A masterpiece arrived on HBO several years ago, and it has taken me until now to find it.
Diane Schüler seemed to be an ideal parent. She worked hard and earned six figures, and yet she was available to her children on a regular basis, consistently made cupcakes when cupcakes were desired, etc. People within her circle credited her with having "tamed" her husband--Daniel--and many seemed to think of Daniel as just another one of Diane's children. This seems cute and warm and fuzzy, until you really think about a wife who views her husband as a child, and then things don't seem so cute or fuzzy anymore.
Famously, one day, Diane arranged to drive her children, along with various other relatives, back from a camping trip. Throughout the morning, she had various encounters--with a McDonald's employee, with a bodega operator--and seemed fine. And yet things ended badly. She hopped onto a highway, heading in the wrong direction. She drove in that direction for almost two miles. Fast. She seemed--to witnesses--to have a serene, distant look on her face. Eventually, her vehicle collided with another vehicle, and everyone involved was murdered--everyone but Diane's young son.
Following the deaths, an investigation occurred, and it was revealed that Diane had the equivalent of ten shots of vodka in her system. A broken bottle of vodka was found in the wreckage of the vehicle. Diane also had been ingesting pot. Horrified, her widower said, "This can't be true." And then, in a strange and very human manner, the husband began to act like a Janet Malcolm character. What do I mean? The husband insisted that, not only was Diane innocent of anything you could throw at her regarding the highway mess, but, also, Diane was a kind of saint.
Friends would murmur about small transgressions in Diane's past. She was perhaps a bit too liberal with horn-honking. The husband would deny, deny, deny--"she never honked!"--so that the husband would become less and less credible.
What's amazing about "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane" is that the filmmakers do their work without any editorializing. In other words, there is no voice-over, and there is no speculation; there aren't silly reenactments. Basically everything you see is just real people--betraying themselves, by accident--in real time. So, even though the husband wants to show himself in a positive light, it nevertheless emerges that he has little or no patience for his surviving son, and that actually he has claimed never to have wanted children; he views the family Diane made as a kind of punishment that was inflicted on him.
Chilling stuff! Meanwhile, we begin to--maybe--understand Diane. She stopped speaking to her mother at nine--because of a perceived betrayal, a betrayal her own brothers handled in a less dramatic way. She--Diane--seemed to be extremely tightly wound--and plagued by a big old Jungian shadow. She may have been a functional alcoholic. (And she made me think of Denzel Washington's character in "Flight.")
A staple of true crime is: "You never really know anyone." A sad and bizarre undercurrent in this HBO film is the suspicion that Daniel really did not know his wife, and maybe didn't care to try to know her. A shoddy arrangement--which became more and more shoddy as the years went on.
Another thing you can't help but think of, while watching "Diane," is Leonardo's "Mona Lisa." Bear with me. The reason people love the Mona Lisa is that you can look and look without really knowing what is happening in that lady's psyche. She is fundamentally mysterious. And the same thing applies--in "Diane." How functional was Diane Schuler when she began her fatal highway journey? Was she drinking because of some kind of stroke, or even severe dental pain? Did she intend--on any level--to commit mass murder? If she'd downed so much alcohol, how could she have seemed so lucid to bystanders for a portion of the day in question? And if Daniel were being fully honest with us, and with himself (and clearly he's not), then what would he tell us about his marriage?
I admire the makers of the HBO special for raising questions artfully and subtly--without a great deal of clunky stage management. I almost spent my snow day seeing the new Huppert film, "Greta," but I'm pleased that forces conspired to send me home to "Something Wrong with Aunt Diane." A painful subject--but it's handled skillfully in this movie, and you can't help but feel moved and unnerved by what you learn (or what you think you learn) about this family.
P.S. Even the title of this rigorous documentary. "There's something wrong with Aunt Diane," is one of the last things a little girl said, on the road, as she tried to alert her parents to the problem that was Diane Schuler. Frightening!
Diane Schüler seemed to be an ideal parent. She worked hard and earned six figures, and yet she was available to her children on a regular basis, consistently made cupcakes when cupcakes were desired, etc. People within her circle credited her with having "tamed" her husband--Daniel--and many seemed to think of Daniel as just another one of Diane's children. This seems cute and warm and fuzzy, until you really think about a wife who views her husband as a child, and then things don't seem so cute or fuzzy anymore.
Famously, one day, Diane arranged to drive her children, along with various other relatives, back from a camping trip. Throughout the morning, she had various encounters--with a McDonald's employee, with a bodega operator--and seemed fine. And yet things ended badly. She hopped onto a highway, heading in the wrong direction. She drove in that direction for almost two miles. Fast. She seemed--to witnesses--to have a serene, distant look on her face. Eventually, her vehicle collided with another vehicle, and everyone involved was murdered--everyone but Diane's young son.
Following the deaths, an investigation occurred, and it was revealed that Diane had the equivalent of ten shots of vodka in her system. A broken bottle of vodka was found in the wreckage of the vehicle. Diane also had been ingesting pot. Horrified, her widower said, "This can't be true." And then, in a strange and very human manner, the husband began to act like a Janet Malcolm character. What do I mean? The husband insisted that, not only was Diane innocent of anything you could throw at her regarding the highway mess, but, also, Diane was a kind of saint.
Friends would murmur about small transgressions in Diane's past. She was perhaps a bit too liberal with horn-honking. The husband would deny, deny, deny--"she never honked!"--so that the husband would become less and less credible.
What's amazing about "There's Something Wrong with Aunt Diane" is that the filmmakers do their work without any editorializing. In other words, there is no voice-over, and there is no speculation; there aren't silly reenactments. Basically everything you see is just real people--betraying themselves, by accident--in real time. So, even though the husband wants to show himself in a positive light, it nevertheless emerges that he has little or no patience for his surviving son, and that actually he has claimed never to have wanted children; he views the family Diane made as a kind of punishment that was inflicted on him.
Chilling stuff! Meanwhile, we begin to--maybe--understand Diane. She stopped speaking to her mother at nine--because of a perceived betrayal, a betrayal her own brothers handled in a less dramatic way. She--Diane--seemed to be extremely tightly wound--and plagued by a big old Jungian shadow. She may have been a functional alcoholic. (And she made me think of Denzel Washington's character in "Flight.")
A staple of true crime is: "You never really know anyone." A sad and bizarre undercurrent in this HBO film is the suspicion that Daniel really did not know his wife, and maybe didn't care to try to know her. A shoddy arrangement--which became more and more shoddy as the years went on.
Another thing you can't help but think of, while watching "Diane," is Leonardo's "Mona Lisa." Bear with me. The reason people love the Mona Lisa is that you can look and look without really knowing what is happening in that lady's psyche. She is fundamentally mysterious. And the same thing applies--in "Diane." How functional was Diane Schuler when she began her fatal highway journey? Was she drinking because of some kind of stroke, or even severe dental pain? Did she intend--on any level--to commit mass murder? If she'd downed so much alcohol, how could she have seemed so lucid to bystanders for a portion of the day in question? And if Daniel were being fully honest with us, and with himself (and clearly he's not), then what would he tell us about his marriage?
I admire the makers of the HBO special for raising questions artfully and subtly--without a great deal of clunky stage management. I almost spent my snow day seeing the new Huppert film, "Greta," but I'm pleased that forces conspired to send me home to "Something Wrong with Aunt Diane." A painful subject--but it's handled skillfully in this movie, and you can't help but feel moved and unnerved by what you learn (or what you think you learn) about this family.
P.S. Even the title of this rigorous documentary. "There's something wrong with Aunt Diane," is one of the last things a little girl said, on the road, as she tried to alert her parents to the problem that was Diane Schuler. Frightening!
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