by Cain Noble-Davies
Worth: $10.00
FilmInk rates movies out of $20 — the score indicates the amount we believe a ticket to the movie to be worth
Cast:
Teresa Russell, Joe Dempsie, Eamon Farren, Adrienne Pickering, Sarah Peirse
Intro:
… just doesn’t add up.
As is the case with most mental health conditions, even to the present day, cinematic depictions of obsessive-compulsive disorder are both sparse and incredibly patchy. Good examples certainly exist, like Jack Nicholson as a fountain of externalised intrusive thoughts in As Good as it Gets, along with Leo DiCaprio’s empathetic (if memetic) turn as Howard Hughes in The Aviator. But typically, it ends up as oversimplified as any other invisible condition, usually with excessive handwashing serving as the beginning and end of both the portrayal and any deeper understanding.
Addition aims to humanise the condition through a rom-com. The camera follows maths tutor Grace (Teresa Palmer) and shows the audience the world through her eyes and, more pointedly, through her arithmomania, a compulsive counting of objects ranging from fruit at the grocery store to the eyelashes on love interest Seamus’ (Joe Dempsie) face.
Between the visualised cascade of numbers and the quick edits from Scott Gray and Deborah Peart, the film is quite stressful to sit through, albeit in a way that helps convey Grace’s need to find order and organisation in herself and her surroundings. There’s also Nikola Tesla (Eamon Farren) appearing as a psychological manifestation of her compulsion, akin to the appearance of Richard III in Stephen Frears’ The Lost King. While Tesla’s inclusion might do the thematic framing more harm than good overall (it basically feels like an open opportunity for jokes along the lines of “oh dear, she’s talking to thin air again…”), Addition thankfully avoids directing the pockets of humour at her and her condition.
Teresa Palmer has a shaky track record both with romances (The Choice) and mental health narratives (Lights Out), but on both counts, she does well with what she’s given here. However, it’s difficult to fully appreciate her conviction in the role when so much of the film feels like it’s filtered through heavy antidepressants. When Grace starts remarking about how her own meds have started dulling her sensations, it comes across like a statement of intent for the film around her due its washed-out and tonally muted design. Her condition isn’t used as a cheap punchline, sure, but it’s not used for a whole lot else, even direct character development. When the romance, the mental health drama and the dances with not-all-there Tesla start melding together, the attempts to be open and honest about finding love while living with obsessive-compulsion end up being overridden not just by the lack of emotive focus, but also a fraught atmosphere that gets across the struggle but not the ability to actually live with it. The narrative focuses so much on the pain and anxiety that it feels more defeatist than anything else – tried and true rom-com formula be damned!
Addition just doesn’t add up. The performances are good and the editing allows for bursts of psychedelic montage, but the film overall is so flat that it’s hard to muster much enthusiasm even when it gets interesting. It’s like staring at waiting room wallpaper for an hour and a half, only to be told that your urgent doctor’s appointment has been rescheduled: A lot of anxious waiting-around for not much payoff.
