In the movie, Margaret tells Ellie that Ben has been struggling, lost another job, and has had to go on mood stabilizers to feel like he can get through the day. This causes a pretty palpable feeling of uneasiness around Ben through the eyes of the women on screen, regardless of how much they’re trying not to judge him for living with mental health conditions. We see this in a massive way when the children start to act strangely and even murderously. Ben sees one of the children drugging their parent’s drink and make stabbing motions, so he points out the strange behavior. Of course when he does, the kids act as if they’re just playing innocently or act bewildered by his accusations. Even though Ben is accurately seeing the children for what they are, the stigma that surrounds living with a mental health condition is still high despite it being more commonplace.There’s Something Wrong with the Children 2023 Movie Download.
Currently, society is probably the most open and expressive as it has ever been about mental health conditions and having conversations around them. Unfortunately, that discussion doesn’t mean it is destigmatized or widely accepted by everyone. This film does a great job of showing a character who is functioning as an adult with a job, relationships, and friendships, but still living with their own struggles and how it can impact those areas of their life.
The stigma that Ben is dealing with in the film is that, because of needing mood stabilizers for manic episodes, he is deemed less believable because of the medication. Even though having episodes or being medicated doesn’t have any correlation to lying or making up stories, that preconceived notion still lives on strong. In the end, when the children do turn on the adults and everyone sees that Ben was right.