Blow Movie Analysis

“Life passes most people by while they’re making grand plans for it” (Demme, 2001). Blow is the true life story of George Jung, it is a two hour and four minute movie depicting his struggle as a father, son, and husband. The movie brings to light family system problems such as abandonment depression, family styles, and of course drug use. This movie is a great example of what an unbalanced family looks like and what are some of the types to be aware of, it also provides a great view on how it can effect ones use of drugs.

Jung’s mother married with the hope of having a husband that would be able to support her finically. His mother hated the fact that her husband never became wealthy like she thought he would. She was disgusted with her middle

class lifestyle and when she became tired of it she would just leave. Jung watched his mother stomp on his father’s heart repeatedly when she left, seeing the hurt that his father felt Jung began to build a toxic relationship with his mother. He numbed himself to the pain of his mother betrayal, she had abandoned her family multiple times over the course of Jung’s childhood. In my opinion Jung suffered from abandonment depression, George became unattached to his mother. When a child has abandonment depression that means that during the nurturing and connection time of the child’s life one or more caring parent is not present. A child begins to have separation anxiety and without a caring parent they develop abandonment depression. Because of this George had small enmeshed relationship with his father because of the fact that he had only one present parent. As seen in the film when George’s mother would return from her extended absents George had a hard time showing his mother affection. During the whole movie George seemed to only look for really caring and love from his father who was his biggest supporter. Although his father did enable his son in his criminal behavior he did express concern only in his son’s happiness. In my view Jung’s struggled as an adult because of the lack of connection between him and his mother, who naturally is the nurturer. When Jung was young he expressed understanding of his fathers and mothers relationship, at one point he express worry of what the mother would think or do if she knew the father had losing his landscaping business. Jung grew up praying that he wouldn’t turn out like either of his parents. Which brought him shame in all his relationship when it came to his partners meet his parents. Shame is something that the book describes as a deep-rooted feeling that was a result of a traumatic childhood experiences that keeps bring up feeling of vulnerability and or disgust (Pastorino, 2015). In the movie Jung points out to his then girlfriend that he never wants to be like his parents because of the shame of betrayal of his father and because of the unbalance that was present in his childhood.
Communication styles are important in a family system they set the tone for what the family and children may turn out like.

When watching the movie I learned what kind of family systems there were between George and his parents and his wife. Jung’s family shows a lot of dysfunction, for example when Jung was growing up his family would be classified as distorted and overextended in my opinion. Distorted family systems are family that try to cover up there crazy acting normal so people won’t know what’s really happening behind closed doors. Overextended Family system, these are people who typical have to stay busy and achieve at all cost. I would say distorted because of the fact that the mother always wanted to hide the fact that she was unhappy in her marriage and family life from her friends. She even went as far as calling the police on Jung when he was on the run because she didn’t want to be embarrassed any longer, she always tried to make herself come off as the perfect wife and mother. They were also overextended because of the fact that Jung’s father was over worked, because of his wife’s need for have money at all times his dad worked multiply jobs. His father provided everything he could for his son and that’s when there enmeshed relationship began. He even went as far as letting his son who at the time was on the run into his home to have a talk with him and was extremely upset when his wife called the cops on their only child. At every turn he tried to help his

son but knew that what his son was apart wasn’t right.
Jung and his wife display all four of the horsemen provided by John Gottman Ph.D.

which is not surprising because of the fact that there relationship was heavily built on drug use, Jung meet his wife who was already married to an acquaintance of his . They married in a cocaine fueled wedding affair with just the two of them in a little white wedding chapel in Vegas. Jung was very much in love with his beautiful Columbium wife that he brought her everything he could possible purchase no matter the cost. Things started to go downhill when his wife became pregnant with their first and only child. Although Jung had warned his wife Mirtha about her drug use during her pregnancy she continued to use and that was the beginning of the presents of the four horsemen in their relationship. Mirtha didn’t spare a moment to point out to Jung that she had been unhappy getting pregnant and having to quit drinking. Criticism is one of the four horsemen that Gottman listed as the ending to any relationship. Mirtha always criticized Jung with whatever came to her in that very moment no matter how cruel. Contempt can be classified as thinking that one person is better than the other. Toward the end of their relationship I believe that Jung believed that he was better than his drug addicted wife. He began to feel disgusted with her behavior after he had gotten clean, and expressed in his behavior how he was disgusted with her behavior. Defensiveness is when one or more partner avoids

responsibilities or avoids consequences. This is clear in Blow when Mirtha and Jung are in the car on the highway and she doesn’t want to come to terms with her role in the fall of her marriage. Stonewalling is when one or more partner’s stops engaging in conversation essentially giving the cold shoulder. The car scene above also shows stonewalling on George’s part, when Mirtha becomes unpredictable and begins harassing Jung as he is driving down the highway he ignores, this is when he becomes cold as she hit, screams and calls him names. According to Gottman’s four horsemen George and Mirtha relationship was domed to come to an end. He would have been correct because the relationship did come to a close after Jung was pulled over on that highway trip and sent to prison for three years where the relationship between him and his daughter suffered.. In my opinion this movie is a great view on what the four horsemen look like, there are multiple examples between Jung and Mirtha and Jung’s parents. The horseman I saw the most was contempt which was displayed both by Jung and his mother. The both showed disgusted in their partner’s inability to be proved the relationship with what they needed at the time. Although this paragraph is about the relationship between Jung and his wife it also need to be noted that his young daughter suffered a lot in the loss of her father. Jung was determined to build a better life for himself but instead he had an even worse relationship with his daughter then he and his mother had.
Jung drug use was a hot topic in the movie it started off as a small problem and then turned into something bigger. In the beginning of the movie Jung started with simple use of Marijuana. There was no showing of initial contact or experimental use, the movie went right into Jung using excessively. He went from a small time drug dealer to selling larger quantities of marijuana a day. This move made his drug use also increase, for example after doing sometime in jail Jung meets a new friend and they joined together and became partners in the Cocaine trade. At this point of the movie is never shown Jung using any other drug but marijuana, so once he began his trade in cocaine he also started to use it. He became extremely dependent on it which put him on the Addiction stage of drug use. Addiction stage of drug use is when a user can’t live their day to day life without the presents of drugs. Jung displayed this in the movie by being high almost all the time. The turning point for Jung is when his daughter Christina Sunshine Jung is born, when Mirtha is giving birth Jung passes out because of the fact that he had done so much cocaine he had essentially overdosed. When he finally woke up the doctor exampled to George that he had almost triple the amount that any normal man or women could handle. After that traumatic experience Jung quit but if I had to selected the range of his use on the DSM-4 that was proved by the book he would have been in the substance dependence stage of use. To be classified under the Substance Dependence category the following items need to be present higher tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, larger intake and taking it longer then intended, densistent desire or unsuccessful cut down, spending more time using, less social and activities involvement, and mental and physical affects. Now in order to be substance dependent the person must contain three or more of the , George has four of these which is higher tolerance, larger intake and it taking it longer then attended, and mental and physical affects. So the fact that George was able to go cold turkey is essentially amazing.
I believe that Jung’s drug use is heavy based on his parent’s relationship and how he grew up. Jung was determined to not be his parents and find a partner that could help him achieve that goal. Instead Jung himself got into an unhealthy relationship with his wife Mirtha, who was almost exactly like her mother in-law. Jung mothers absents caused him to change his life by any means possible which ultimately pushed him into the same situation. I strongly believe that a balanced family system is very important in shaping a child life and future. Which is proof on how an unhealthy and unbalance family can lead a child into situation just like Jung’s. An unbalance family system is something that can be fixed with family system therapy and love and understanding. Marriages can also be saved from the four horseman by using things like “I” statements when a partner is criticizing the other, defensiveness can be fixed by taking responsibility for ones actions, contempt can be fixed by building respect, and stonewalling can