Prozac Nation had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival on September 8, 2001 (three days before the September 11 attacks); distribution rights were acquired by Miramax Films with the intent of giving the film a wider theatrical release. Months of subsequent test screenings and re-edits of the film never led to a broad commercial release.[1] It was released in Norway, Skjoldbjærg's native country, on August 22, 2003. The film was never given a theatrical release in the United States, where it instead premiered on the Starz! channel on March 19, 2005,[4][5] and was released on DVD on July 5, 2005.[6]
The film is a hell ride. It's a lethal combination of beauty, brains, and narcissism masquerading as a human grenade. Based on Wurtzel's Generation X best seller, it describes depression with unparalleled accuracy and prose sharper than a razor blade. While this is unfortunately one of those annoying cases in which the book is better than its adaptation, don't let that stop you from watching. Five minutes in, you'll realize you can't look away. It's like witnessing the most bewitching car crash you can fathom.
The only likely reason Ricci lost out on an Oscar nomination that year for her lung-stabbing performance is because the film was never released in the States. Due to some executive-level bullshit, the distributor (Miramax) pawned it off on the premium cable channel Starz four years later. It was released in the director's home country of Norway to an audience of tens. That brought about the ironic New York Times headline, "For Author of 'Prozac Nation,' Delayed Film Is a Downer."
From her first attempted suicide as a 12 year old, Wurtzel records her life as an intellectually gifted but emotionally deprived young woman struggling with clinical depression. She describes her adolescence and her acceptance to Harvard despite a checkered high school career. At the university, she lived constantly on the precipice of a nervous breakdown-and slipped down into the abyss from time to time. Always, she fought back-relying on therapy, drugs (both licit and illicit), friends, and an innate inner strength-and found some salvation in the recognition she received for her writing. Ultimately, treatment with a combination of lithium and prozac allowed her to maintain her stability, but she is unwilling to accept a fate of life-long drug dependence. Graphically written, this book expresses the pain and anger of Wurtzel's unremitting protest against her disability. It will appeal to young readers seeking stories of depression they can relate to. Recommended.-Carol R. Glatt, VA Medical Ctr. Lib., Philadelphia
"Full of promise" is how anyone would have described Elizabeth Wurtzel at age ten, a bright-eyed little girl who painted, wrote stories, and excelled in school. By age 12, she was cutting her legs with razor blades, and college turned into a series of breakdowns, crises, and a suicide attempt. Not until being prescribed Prozac, in combination with other psychoactive drugs and therapy, was some stability possible for her. Written with spunk and wit, this is an excellent picture of a young woman's struggle with depression and her view of the dire effects our social and cultural milieu has on the young. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
Elizabeth Wurtzel, whose 1994 memoir Prozac Nation became a mainstay on bestseller lists and inspired a national conversation about clinical depression, has died at the age of 52. David Lipsky, a friend of Wurtzel, confirmed to NPR that the writer died Tuesday of an aggressive case of breast cancer at a hospital in Manhattan.
An extravaganza in Bemelmans' inimitable vein, but written almost dead pan, with sly, amusing, sometimes biting undertones, breaking through. For Bemelmans was "the man who came to cocktails". And his hostess was Lady Mendl (Elsie de Wolfe), arbiter of American decorating taste over a generation. Lady Mendl was an incredible person,- self-made in proper American tradition on the one hand, for she had been haunted by the poverty of her childhood, and the years of struggle up from its ugliness,- until she became synonymous with the exotic, exquisite, worshipper at beauty's whrine. Bemelmans draws a portrait in extremes, through apt descriptions, through hilarious anecdote, through surprisingly sympathetic and understanding bits of appreciation. The scene shifts from Hollywood to the home she loved the best in Versailles. One meets in passing a vast roster of famous figures of the international and artistic set. And always one feels Bemelmans, slightly offstage, observing, recording, commenting, illustrated.
Since SSRIs arrived 16 years ago with the introduction of Eli Lilly & Co.'s Prozac, the category has expanded into a collection of blockbusters for Lilly, Pfizer, GlaxoSmithkline and other manufacturers. All told, the antidepressants category accounts for $14 billion a year of wholesale revenues just in the U.S., according to IMS Health. In the first five months of this year American doctors wrote 46 million prescriptions for antidepressants, up 5% over the same period last year, according to NDCHealth. Yes, this is a Prozac nation. Dr. Mark Vanden Bosch, an anesthesiologist at the Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Mass., who must be alert to drugs that might interact with anesthesia, estimates that a third of the patients checking into his hospital, for a wide range of operations, are on antidepressants.
The second-guessing about SSRIs comes just as the earliest patents have expired, or are about to. The combination of potentially dampened prescription volume and new price competition could bring a lot of disappointment to investors in Pfizer and its competitors.
I hate lists of awards but do have a few that I'm particularly proud of, including the Philadelphia Business Journal \"40 under 40\" and being named one of the Global Tax 50 by the International Tax Review for my \"tireless and passionate tax reporting.\"
The final chapters provide intriguing, knotty questions about psychopharmacology as Wurtzel on one hand characterizes Prozac as a national joke, trendy, a silly drug for crybabies, cosmetic pharmacology for the U.S., which is in "one big collective bad mood"; and on the other, as a drug that literally saves lives. Her writing complicates the issues surrounding psychopharmacology and therapy, and her attempt to "write a book that felt as bad as it feels to feel this bad . . . to be true to the experience of depression" hits the mark.
After Lizzie picks up a prescription from a pharmacy a man delivers a stack of cartoons labeled "FLUOXETINE."
"I call this the crack house where I come to score. Dr. Sterling is my dealer. Seems like everyone's doctor is dealing this stuff now. Sometimes it feels like we're all living in a Prozac nation, the United States of depression." (1:26)