The Suicide of Rachel Foster contains a rather painful and controversial topic. Suicide. However, it was a challenge for me to discuss this painful topic and remain humble and respectful even when I write about it. But, in this particular post, I shall try to maintain my utter most humility and respect for those of you who have dealt with suicide in the past. To those of you who have lost someone close to suicide, I’m so sorry and please accept my deepest condolences.
And I must also mention that I haven’t really written about this topic before. Aging and even loneliness were humbling topics for me not that long ago. But not suicide, I’m afraid. Even though it’s a difficult subject to talk and write about, I welcomed it.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster: A Masterpiece In Atmospheric Storytelling
Well, that’s how some of the Steam users are describing the game, which is in fact a fairly new game. Developed by ONE-O-ONE GAMES and published by Daedalic Entertainment, The Suicide of Rachel Foster is a mystery and an adventure game, all in one. As one other Steam user pointed out, it manages to treat extremely delicate issues with extraordinary tact. However, we do have it currently on sale, but that sale is not going to last very long. Hurry up and get the game that’s been described as „ a game that’s up there with the best in its genre“.
But What’s The The Suicide of Rachel Foster All About?
The Suicide of Rachel Foster is set in Lewis & Clark County, Montana. However, in the game, you play as Nicole. A young woman who is returning to her parents’ old, empty hotel in the middle of the Montana wilderness. Nicole hopes to survey the decaying hotel, called The Timberland, and then sell it. Indeed, she’s very much determined to finally be free of the hotel and its secrets.
Why? Because 10 years prior, Nicole and her mother fled The Timberland after finding out that her father had an intimate relationship with a teenager. Rachel Foster. She subsequently took her own life, but the mystery around her tragic death still lingers, a decade later. So, as Nicole is auditing the hotel, a brutal snowstorm traps her inside. And with all of the hotel’s memories.
So, with this particularly difficult topic in mind, I’ve selected 4 incredible yet respectful movies that not only deal with the act of suicide, but with the aftermath as well. They also depict the family, friends and the community and how are they coping with suicide. I hope you like my choices.
Ordinary People
Robert Redford’s directorial debut and probably the oldest movie on this list. Rightfully so, the Hollywood veteran won the Oscar for best director in this brilliant movie about dealing with grief. More specifically about how one family deals with grief. Oscar-winner Timothy Hutton plays Conrad. A young man with survivor’s guilt after the death of his brother in a boating accident. After his release from a mental institution and after a failed suicide attempt he seeks help from a psychiatrist (played by Jude Hirsh) to deal with this inner demons.
But Ordinary People is more than that. It’s more about how the entire family copes with the loss. Some choose to talk about their grief, while others chose to ignore it and suppress it. It’s a true study of characters and a true masterpiece of the ’80s. A movie that’s worth watching solely because of the fantastic performances from Hirsch and Hutton. But also from Donald Sutherland and Mary Taylor Moore. It’s a beautiful movie, and I highly recommend it.
Night Mother
It’s the second movie on this list, and I’m still staying in the ’80s with it. Most of you have never even heard of this movie, but it’s fantastic. And unlike Ordinary People, Night Mother is based on a Pulitzer Prize-winning play. However, when you watch the movie adaptation of the play, you feel as if you are watching the actual play. In the theater no less. The entire movie takes place in just one house. Not to mention the movie starts in the morning and ends late at night. Oh, and the movie has just 2 actresses on screen. Just these two legends.
The Oscar winners Anne Bancroft and Sissy Spacek. Indeed, they play mother and daughter in this outstanding drama, which ends in tragedy. But the movie is exhilarating as much as it’s sad. Sissy’s character Jesse gets her affairs in order, finds her dad’s gun and nonchalantly announces to her mother that she will commit suicide. At the end of the day. The entire movie after that moment is a desperate plea of her mother to stop her daughter from ending her life. Night Mother is a sad, but beautiful movie with plenty of dialogue and it’s worth the watch. Not to mention it has some of the two finest performances in a movie ever. It’s heartbreaking, and tragic at the same time.
Virgin Suicides
Ordinary People was Robert Redford’s directorial debut, but Virgin Suicides was Sofia Coppola’s debut as a director. Based on a novel of the same name (by Jeffrey Eugenides), follows the lives of five adolescent sisters in suburban Detroit. After one of the sisters makes an initial suicide attempt, their strict parents will put the rest of the siblings under strict home confinement.
This will however lead to the tragic event mentioned in the title. The suicide of the sisters. I’m glad that the movie is told from two different perspectives. From the past and the present perspective that is. And how the friends of the girls were affected by their suicide, decades after the act. James Woods and Kathleen Turner are fantastic as the strict parents, while Kirsten Dunst has been a fixture in Sofia Coppola’s movies ever since. It’s a melancholic yet beautiful movie that will haunt you for days afterward. I also recommend it.
Imaginary Heroes
Imaginary Heroes has a fantastic cast, and yet nobody knows about it. Sigourney Weaver, Jeff Daniels, Emile Hirsch and Michelle Williams are part of it, and they’re so good. The four of them play family members who deal with the sudden suicide of their son and older brother. He was a talented, good-looking and very promising swimmer, but commits suicide in the first 10 minutes of the movie.
However, the movie then follows the surviving family members and how they chose to deal with their grief. They all cope and deal with grief in a different way. The mother starts to smoke marijuana, the father begins to drink heavily and just sits aimlessly in silence. But the main character in this story (played by Emile Hirsch) does all of that and so much more. I’m so glad that this movie exists. And I’m also glad that it was made some 16 years ago because it wouldn’t have been made today. Not with that cast anyway. It’s a raw, and emotional family drama, but its an incredible movie nonetheless.
The Suicide of Rachel Foster: Your Thoughts
Which movies would you add to this list? Tell us in the comment section. We’d love to know.