Crooked Beauty : Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness

Crooked Beauty is a poetic documentary that chronicles artist-activist Jacks McNamara's transformative journey from childhood abuse to psych ward inpatient to pioneering mental health advocacy. It is an intimate portrait of her intense personal quest to live with courage and dignity, and a powerful critique of standard psychiatric treatments. Poignant testimonials connect the fissures and fault lines of human nature to the unstable topography and mercurial weather patterns of the San Francisco Bay Area. Crooked Beauty reshapes mental health stigmas through a new healing culture and political model for living with madness as a tool of creativity, inspiration and hope.

"Crooked Beauty is that rare breed of film that is both a socially relevant documentary while at the same time a work of artistic beauty. The combination is breathtaking and inspiring."   - Jay Rosenblatt, Filmmaker

"Crooked Beauty seduces with poetic beauty and challenges with incisive commentary to profoundly re-shape our understanding of mental illness. It is a great example of how the art documentary can speak to real issues in a timely way."   - Bill Nichols, Documentary Film Scholar, Author 

“Crooked Beauty is a lovely and informative work, integrating the filmmaker's excellent eye pour l'image du movement with his knowledgeable focus on the mental health field."   - Bruce Baille, Filmmaker

“Crooked Beauty is a magisterial piece of cinema on every level.”   - Gene Youngblood, Media Theorist, Author