***Somewhat of a SPOILER***<br /><br />I rented this movie with much anticipation. The title alone got me excited about it. I had also seen an interview with one of the stars on Fuse a while back and desired to see it then.<br /><br />First off...I think "Manic" was not the right title for the movie. The main character in the movie, Lyle, shows some signs of mania...but he's more angry and obviously cannot control any sort of anger. It is possible I may be confused by what the title is referring to, however, since this movie is placed in a mental ward and the characters are taking such things as Tegretol and Depakote, I leaned towards the bipolar disorder basis before I even rented the movie. <br /><br />I did not like the "token characters." They wore thin with "Girl, Interrupted." Let's see....we have the girl that is goth looking (because we all know girls that wear black lipstick are wildly depressed). We have the quiet girl who is always calm towards people, but has obvious problems and is always holding things back. We have the person that makes everyone angry because he is so mad about his own life, he must make things terrible for all the people there. We have the friend that there is no hope for, because he does not try to get better (I feel mostly because he does not know how to live outside of a hospital). We have the shy one with lots of problems and who stays mostly quiet until the main character can bring some sort of feeling out of him. And last, but certainly not least, the main character...the one that comes in thinking they have no problem, but in the end realizes and works to get better and tries and usually ends up making an impact on some of the people there. I think maybe I should label this with a spoilers...but it is so typical.<br /><br />The jerky camera work throughout the movie gets really, really annoying. It's like the director is screaming, "THIS IS AN INDEPENDENT FILM!!!!!!!!!!!!" The opening scene is done in an interesting fashion, that's about all I liked about it. I will, however, give credit for some decent performances. They were well calculated, but too similar to other movies dealing with mental illness issues. <br /><br />2/4 stars