August, The Film: Family Roles That Cause Psychological Damage

The family is the socializing instrument that mediates between the individual and the rest of the world. It will be the first model we take to start relating: a social starting point that in many cases has an influence beyond childhood. In this sense, Agosto is a film that captures a reality that is far from idyllic, but that repeats itself more than we like to admit.

It is a model family environment for the outside, but only those who live it from the inside know what is woven in each house. Characters that are torn between brotherly love for the people who have given them life and the bleak panorama of an environment where frustration, envy and competitiveness are projected. .. instead of love and protection.

August: synopsis

After the death by suicide of the father of the family, his wife calls their three daughters to return to the family home and attend the funeral. For each of the daughters this visit is a reunion with the conflicts and resentments of the past.

The father had taken refuge in alcohol for years and the mother is addicted to drugs. The marriage has a very destructive relationship that basically limits itself to satisfying her demands and complaints. The woman does not believe she is receiving the treatment she deserves. She punishes her husband with impunity for an infidelity committed many years ago from which a child was born. Both hide the fact as the great family secret.

Both come from a marginal background of poverty and abuse from their parents. Rough people who were used to the harshness of life. Both are proud to have emerged from that environment devoid of opportunities and to have succeeded thanks to sacrifice and hard work.

They have projected their own wishes for success onto their daughters, but none seem to have lived up to their expectations. The mother has deep contempt for all three and misses no opportunity to question her lifestyle.

A passive-aggressive mother

The character of the mother in August has some narcissistic elements, but above all it defines the passive-aggressive personality well. He focuses solely on the mistakes made by his daughters. She reproaches them for having had opportunities that she did not have. She is manipulative and overly theatrical and dramatic when her tricks don’t work out the way she wants.

You feel in competition with everyone. Any information he obtains from his daughters is used as a throwing weapon against them. Always use the double binding message (negative-positive-negative comment).

It is the role of the sick woman who dominates the world. She feels attacked because her daughters made their lives. She does whatever it takes to get them to come back and remind them of “their obligations to her.” She keeps telling them how little she had and how much they have had.

Eldest daughter

The older sister has always been assigned the role of mediator and instigator of order in family crises, both with her younger sisters and with her own parents. She has developed a more controlling character and this has led to numerous problems with her own husband, who has divorced her. Fact that the whole family is still unaware of.

Despite the love that her husband and daughter feel for her, they find it unbearable that she does not allow herself to relax for a moment with them. There is an internal struggle in it for the generational non-repetition of patterns.

The middle sister

In traditional families there is always a daughter who is assigned the role of parental caretaker. This is the case with the middle daughter in the movie. He has not married or done much with his life other than taking care of his parents and this has caused him to accumulate a lot of resentment towards them and towards his sisters. He has a very strange relationship with a half-cousin, but nobody knows it.

Her mother has no problem with this daughter perfectly developing the role assigned to her, but she does not value or admit it at all. He has hidden his guilt by constantly attacking his daughter.

He reproaches him for not having formed his own family because of his unladylike appearance. He even dares to compete in this regard to make fun of her. This daughter has serious problems relating to others and seems to have developed an avoidant personality.

The little sister

The little daughter is totally lost. She is a very childish and fragile woman who only wants to please everyone in order to be accepted. She has spent her entire adult life jumping from one relationship to another, each worse, taking risks with men who don’t treat her well.

However, for her all her relationships are the final one. He is a very emotionally dependent person. He goes to great lengths to show his mother how happy he is and how perfect and idyllic his current relationship is, whatever it may be. For the rest, their partners are just “this year’s boyfriend.” It is difficult to say with the data that the film shows, but we could well be talking about a borderline personality.

Recognizing patterns

All three daughters have grown up in an authoritarian educational style. Their parents have never shown any kind of affection for them and have exercised rigid control over their lives. There is a disorganized attachment in all of them, although each has dealt with this in different ways.

Even so, when crises appear in the family, the first strategy they use is denial. This makes it easy for them to maintain a false family homeostasis and each one has developed different defense mechanisms to survive this family nucleus.

In short, it is a “normal” family environment for the outside eye, but tremendously dysfunctional from the inside, where there are a multitude of triangulations.

August is just a movie, but it has managed to collect many of the roles that are automatically assigned to the members of a family and that reflects the amount of problems that these roles can cause in the future in the form of frustrated and denied wishes. The film takes place in the month of August, with suffocating heat. A suffocation that can be felt in its characters.

The Provincial Hospital of Castellón, presented a few months ago a brilliant analysis of the film Agosto in one of its meta-training seminars, which delves into each of these issues from a therapeutic perspective. They are roles in which many people can be reflected and it is a phenomenon that should be reviewed for the psychological well-being of those who suffer from these environments and of the people around them in adulthood.