Review of Electricity (2014) by Daniel D — 27 Jun 2016

"First the breath, then the breeze, then the shimmer, then I'm Alice down the rabbit hole." Electricity is the first feature film I've seen with an epileptic protagonist, so I have no body of epileptic cinema compare it to.

But, knowing much more about the subject than I wish anyone did, the first thing that I have to salute this movie for is the filmmakers' detailed, sensitive knowledge of what seizures, living with seizures does to you.

I recognize the onset symptoms of shortness of breath and repetitive thoughts, the acute pain of the shocks, the lost time and memory gaps, the attempts to plan your life around symptoms and hazards. Thankfully, though, Electricity offers much more than just a portrayal of the struggle with illness.

The story revolves a young British woman's attempt to reconnect with her lost siblings after their mother dies. Stricken with the unique humiliations of temporal lobe epilepsy since childhood, Lilly has grown up institutionalized, only recently having emerged into the working world.

Her callous oldest brother Barry has grown up to be a thoroughly untrustworthy professional gambler. Her favorite, her brother Mikey, who saved her life when they were children, disappeared into the juvenile justice system, never to be heard from again.

Lily journeys into London to find what happened to Mikey. The early signs don't look good. All the while, Lilly is dogged by her seemingly inescapable grand mals, repeatedly battering her into bloody, helpless confusion in public--often under the indifferent gaze of strangers.

The film's imagery ranges from meticulously realistic to the grotesque hallucinations. I wish I knew Lilly: I don't meet many other people in this plight, but no one else understands like someone who's been down the rabbit hole.

This film can give the rest of you a pretty good idea of what it's like, though.