My thoughts on UNREST (2017) ★ ★ ★ ★

*Update, September 2019: My review below is based on my careful viewing - twice - of UNREST in autumn 2017, I was sent the screener by Jennifer Brea's PR team. I was around this time invited to speak at a local ODEON showing of UNREST but was too ill to commit. I did take part in a very successful Scottish Parliament UNREST event in early 2018, where Jennifer skyped in to the session. It is important to note that since then Jennifer Brea has been diagnosed with cervical cranial instability (CCI) and tethered cord - she had various neurosurgeries in late 2018 which have resulted, very happily for her, in a return  to full health. There is thus far no medical explanation as to why fusion surgery for CCI would cure ME virtually overnight and I think this suggests that Jennifer *could* perhaps have been misdiagnosed with ME in first place, and may explain why it seemed that she was at times 'inhabiting' the role of a person with ME. Please note, this is my opinion, I am not saying Jennifer did not have ME, I am stating my own feelings based on her film and also her often confusing commentary on Twitter. (I - and I am certainly not alone - have noticed worrying inconsistencies and contradictions and hyperbole in her narrative.)

Jennifer's may well be a cautionary tale and could perhaps turn out to be instrumental in having discovered a new (albeit unusual) differential diagnosis of ME. Chiari - another structural abnormality causing brainstem compression - is already  listed under differential diagnosis in the ME Association clinical guideline, which is co-authored by consultant neurologist Abhijit Chaudhuri. I certainly think UNREST is still valuable, the other severely affected patients' stories are compelling, but there must, in my opinion, be a caveat/update in any screenings, especially when the film is being used for continuing medical education (CME) in USA.

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UNREST is a new film from USA about ME directed by thirty-five year old Jennifer Brea. The film has garnered much praise and documents Brea's own descent into ME (or CFS as it's interchangeably referred to in the film - this is not without problem as the toxic reframing of ME as CFS remains unexplored). Still, ME sufferers have been starved of representation (though we've also had VOICES FROM THE SHADOWS (2011) and FORGOTTEN PLAGUE (2015)) and it's unsurprising there's been such a buzz about the film. I'm passionate about education and I tried hard to watch UNREST as someone who knows nothing about ME, to see what it taught me. This was almost impossible to do (to put my own experience and knowledge to the side). UNREST is not just about illness, it's about how technology connected Brea to other 'shut in' people, invisible - housebound and bedbound with ME.  We are all networked, now, globally, if we choose to be. In a way, the theme is the obsolescence of the written word for communicating lived experience.

I found UNREST to be powerful in its illumination of ME - particularly through the inclusion of three very severely ill younger patients - and I found myself in tears frequently. But I also found the film lacked clarity in places. The politicisation of the illness is glossed over, as is previous advocacy, but it would be impossible to investigate the politics of ME in a 90 minute documentary - and this is very much Brea's own story (not a UK story where the horrors of PACE still abound). I think those more recently diagnosed, still grappling with the hell of it all, will find the film resonates hugely for them.

The film looks beautiful and, at times, has a dream-like quality: this reflects the sense of unreality that comes in the early stages of this illness, the sense that it can't actually be possible to be so alarmingly ill without any recognised treatment path. I loved the lighting, the shadows, the focusing on objects, like blue jars on a window sill with snow falling behind, to mark the passing of time. When writing about chronic illness there is little sense of plot, nothing changes, so you have to amplify small moments. A ceiling fan, a ladybird, a pair of high heels - unworn shoes are an important #millionsmissing campaign symbol - objects that take on immense meaning when you may be staring at them for hours on end, too ill to do anything else.

Having been ill since 1982 - and gone through my own hell as an eighteen year old -  I'm naturally a little jaded, but it was impossible not to cry at the extreme circumstances of Jessica Taylor-Bearman (UK), Karina Hansen (Denmark) and Whitney Dafoe (USA). I already knew a little about all of them. The image of poor twenty-seven year old Karina sitting on her bed, back home with her parents after being forcibly institutionalised for three years, will haunt me for a long time. The expression on her face is something that is hard to see (or unsee). Danish psychiatrist Per Fink is the villain in this piece and I couldn't help but have the very personal memory of my dear late Danish stepfather who supported me unfailingly throughout my illness. Twenty-six year old Jessica has been ill since she was fourteen and was in hospital for four years. She has severe osteoporosis as a result of being bedridden for so long. She has champagne held to her lips by her dad and counts back to the birthdays she has spent in bed (I thought of my own twenty-first in bed in 1984, which I fictionalised almost twenty-five years later, Helen Fleet, bedbound, feels like ‘a clown, a grotesque invalid wearing bright red lipstick and titanium earrings’). And Whitney, the son of Stanford professor Ron Davis, is unremittingly and severely ill, inhabiting a dark and hellish place - he  cannot even speak.

Brea decided to film herself to document what was happening, as doctors were not taking her symptoms seriously. She goes through what is familiar to many of us, trailing from specialist to specialist until we find someone with the expertise and knowledge to identify what is actually wrong (those more recently diagnosed or new to the illness may find Brea's own story more immersive than someone like myself, ill for decades). Seven years ago, she had a high fever, she  appeared to recover, but still never felt quite well. She would drag herself to classes. She  got infection after infection and would experience suddenly not being able to pick up a glass of water or sign her name on a cheque. On bike rides, instead of being able to do twelve miles, as before, she could only do six (this is not in the film but I've seen mentioned in a recent Times interview). After no joy with other doctors, she is eventually diagnosed with conversion disorder by a neurologist and walks home from the appointment to see if it is all in her head, as she has been told. She narrates that she collapses when she gets home and is in bed for most of the next two years.

She discovers others with similar symptoms online and wonders if she too might have ME (this, of course, is the Wesselyian fantasy, ME sufferers diagnosing themselves on the Internet. In Professor Wessely's world, patients are discouraged from educating themselves in case they discover that they are actually physically ill). Brea learns much about the illness through social media. This would have been the stuff of science fiction in the eighties. I'd never heard of ME. I remember looking up Coxsackie in the university library and the heavy book burning my arms. It is hard now to convey the paucity of information thirty years ago.  Brea consults New York's ME specialist Dr Enlander  - though he is not named in the film - and is prescribed Valcyte - an antiviral drug - which leads to her improving in two days and being able to walk again. This seems almost miraculous and it frustrated me that there was no discussion about Valcyte - what it is, what it does - some viewers may have wondered why we are not all taking Valcyte. It is an off-label treatment, which has not helped everyone who has tried it - and indeed can make some feel worse. And is not easily available to most (NICE guidelines in UK do not recommend antivirals,  unsurprisingly, as 'CFS' clinics prefer to treat ME sufferers with wholly inappropriate graded exercise and CBT. These guidelines are now, thankfully, under review, not before time).

Brea acknowledges that she was lucky to have access to a specialist. I felt, though, I wanted to know more about her actual diagnosis. We see her having lots of blood taken, I wanted to know what the tests were for. Being diagnosed is such a significant moment for those of us who have struggled to be believed: I went through the hell of Coxsackie B4 virus, undiagnosed for nine months, which then 'evolved' monstrously into ME. The Coxsackie diagnosis was a key moment - crucial to my getting a referral to neurologist Prof Behan, who worked closely with Dr Melvin Ramsay - all those years ago. My GP could no longer say I was imagining tremors in my muscles.

The film did make me think about how different a diagnosis is now than in the eighties. I was horrified in 1984 that I might stay ill for another five years (that was the advice back then - that it might 'burn itself out' in five years). I did not know how I would be able to stand the physical hell of ME for that long. I'm glad I had no idea of the true prognosis. Now, of course, those with an ME diagnosis know that that they might stay ill for decades. Brea speaks tearfully in the film of the grief and loss that the illness brings, she reflects candidly that she is doing 'a good job' by not killing herself.  I was struck by the scene where via Skype,  Jennifer asks Jessica, who is lying down flat in bed, almost ethereal, being filmed from  above: How did  you stay sane?

I remember too crying a lot at the beginning of my illness. I felt so ill, completely poisoned. It was terrifying ('How can you feel so ill and not be dying?' as my character Helen Fleet says). I'm sure I articulated my grief too back then but I can't now remember. I think it took me a decade to truly adjust to the illness. I missed my academic self. I wanted to know more about how Brea felt having to give up her PhD. She never refers to it after her diagnosis. Decades on, I still feel a kind of grief that I had to abandon my year studying in France in 1982/3 - and that I was unable to complete my French and English Honours degree.

I was conscious, though, while watching the film that it is a constructed piece of art, an artifice, like any narrative, and a couple of Brea's own scenes felt slightly 'theatrical', at least, to me. I don't mean acted, rather enacted. For me, this detracted from authenticity. It felt, at times, that she was re-enacting what she had experienced rather than experiencing it in that moment. I imagined numerous 'takes' to capture the reality of the illness. I compared it in my head to writing a scene, which you polish and polish until it's perfect (I could be totally wrong, of course, these are only my thoughts). Also, I was interested that much remains unsaid in the film. For example, Brea is not seen having to cope with the very damaging disbelief from family or friends, as many of us have done at some point in our illness (of course, she may well have done, we don't know, we only know what she reports). We see her interacting only with her husband, Omar, who is noble and loving and patient. He only loses his cool - understandably - when Brea attempts extreme mould avoidance as a treatment for her illness. Earlier in the film, when Brea has had an acute episode after over-exertion at a Princeton reunion, Omar - in tears himself - makes an observation that resonated for me: other people's pity is hard to bear.

Brea makes a crucial point when she says that one of the reasons the illness is not always believed is because we are hidden so much of the time. We spend so much time indoors recovering from small exertions. No one sees us at our worst. Some sufferers, tragically, cannot move from bed at all and are totally dependent on others for care. And there are a minority of ME sufferers whose illness is actually progressive. There is a brief but good description from Dr Nancy Klimas on mitochondrial dysfunction and the problems with aerobic exercise that ME sufferers have.

As I understand it, these days, Brea uses a power wheelchair when she is outdoors, but has now improved sufficiently to be able to promote her film in the USA and other countries (Brea also says she has POTS, though this is not referenced in the film. I think she should have mentioned this, as POTS and ME often 'overlap'). Improvement is always to be celebrated in ME, it's wonderful when it happens, though her current schedule seems impossible to sustain for someone with ME, certainly, the illness I know as ME.

Then again, I don't know anyone who is taking Valcyte. I guess it allows for a much greater level of functioning in some. While I have slight concerns that Brea is somewhat unrepresentative of many with ME, I, of course, recognise that we all can and do have different staminas and symptoms - and  symptoms do fluctuate. I also know that because of the lack of belief we've faced, we can be fiercely wedded to our own experience of the illness. And the rhetoric of 'oh, how can she do that?' can be extremely harmful (we've all faced it, I'm sure). But all of us - with true ME - share the cardinal symptom of post-exertional malaise (PEM). We are defined by exertion-intolerance: fatigability not fatigue. And in between times we are always invisible, always 'recovering' from an escalation of symptoms. The differences, though, between mild, moderate, severe and very severe ME are night and day.

There are small moments that perhaps only someone with ME will see. In one scene, a young woman Casie - whose mother, the quite fabulous Leeray, also has ME - says her arms are getting tired, when holding up her iPad to show photos. A small moment, but instantly recognisable - and important to portray. The last few minutes of the film focus on the #millionsmissing campaign, a campaign conceived by Stacy Hodges. Those empty shoes are such a potent symbol: most of us put our shoes on to go out into the world every day. Those of us with ME often can't and don't. There are ME sufferers who have not had to buy new shoes for years. There are ME sufferers who have killed themselves because they cannot stand it any more. There are also ME sufferers who have died of the consequences of extremely severe ME.

The film ends with beautifully stirring music - the score is by Bear McCreary - and Brea telling us that while the illness has destroyed her life and she wishes every day that she were well again, that she has embraced a different, new life. She expresses gratitude for the lessons the illness has taught her. To be honest, I found this hard to understand - and  a little saccharine. I could never be grateful for the catastrophe of my illness, but you just can't compare seven years with thirty-five, our landscapes are entirely different. Though, I can also say I have never at any stage of my illness felt 'grateful'. The illness has been much too harsh, physically. And I have lost too much. The enforced 'stillness' of the illness has given me a useful perspective as writer but I would swap that in a second for never having had ME in first place.

Perhaps, though, Brea's optimism is part of the narrative arc, a conscious 'happy' ending to such a bleak tale. And perhaps, importantly, her own ending - and significant improvement (thanks to medication) - also gives hope to younger and/or newer sufferers. The film is an exhausting watch. Before the credits, we see the names rolling of some of those who have died as a result of having ME (I think they had taken their own lives). I sat silent for a few minutes, after the film ended, I couldn't speak (and I imagine seeing this in the cinema would enhance the  emotion I felt, I watched on laptop, was sent a link by UNREST UK team).

I'd like doctors and politicians - and anyone who is cynical about the illness - to see UNREST.  I'm glad it's being shown in medical schools. But I'd also have liked to have seen more of the science that we do know - and I fear that the lack of political context may prevent the film having as much impact as it could. The medical and political scandal of what has happened to ME sufferers is never fully articulated. I wish, for example, footage of Stanford's Professor Montoya apologising to sufferers for the way the medical profession has treated them had been included.

In the UK, ME is synonymous with the hijacking and reframing of the illness as 'chronic fatigue' in the 1990s by  Simon Wessely and colleagues -  the ascent of UK psychiatrists cannot be ignored, nor the toxic influence they have had worldwide on the perception of ME, with their relentless and ruthless promotion of the biopsychosocial model - and wilful conflation of criteria of ME and CFS. While the film packs a huge emotional punch, I'm not sure how much it will punch politically in the UK. The biopsychosocial narrative is so embedded, it will take a juggernaut to shift it. Hannah McGill and Leslie Felperin, both respected film reviewers, still referred ignorantly to the physical v psychological debate as if the robust science of physiological abnormalities simply doesn't exist (though the Guardian has historically been dreadful with ME coverage). Mark Kermode gave a lovely review, though he was already empathetic.

We need journalists and doctors - and everyone else - to come out of UNREST enraged at what ME sufferers have endured, and unequivocal that ME is a physical illness - it is not enough that they feel greatly moved by the plight of very sick people.  Still, the film is giving the illness a much needed, greater visibility - and kudos to the UNREST team for pulling this off. I very much hope this visibility can translate to more research funding, which is what we need above all.  I dislike starring systems - they lack nuance and subtlety - but having given my response in great detail above, I happily give UNREST four out of five stars as an art work about ME.

*Just to add that UNREST was funded through Kickstarter and it's a testament to the generosity and hope of ME sufferers and their families - and their faith in the process - that UNREST has had the media coverage/distribution/success it has.