Reign Over Me Analysis

Reign Over Me (2007) stars Adam Sandler who plays the character of Charlie Fineman, who lost his wife and four daughters in the tragedy of the September 11, 2001 terror attack. One day, his old college roommate, Alan Johnson, played by Don Cheadle, spots Charlie while out and about out and attempts to get his attention, but fails. Alan then sees him yet again at a different time and it takes him a while to get Charlie’s attention once again. When he finally captures Charlie’s attention, he asks Charlie if he remembers who he is and Charlie has no idea. Allen proceeds to tell him that he is his old college roommate and gives some examples to try to trigger Charlie’s memory. Charlie finally realizes who he is and afterwards Charlie wants to hang
One night, they’re out at a bar and Alan tells Charlie that there are a significant number of beautiful women at this bar. Charlie begins to become suspicious of Alan’s intentions and asks him why he told him that. Alan tells him that now that he is single and because of what happened to his family, he should try to get out there. This is when Charlie got upset. He claimed that he did not have a family and since he had been to plenty of psychiatrists, and therapists, he asked if he was sent here by someone to get Charlie to talk about his feelings. A couple of days later, Charlie and Alan begin to spend more time together. One night, they go to a theater for a marathon of movies, when they get out, Alan noticed his wife has called him several times. When he finally calls her back, he his heartbroken to find out that his father has died. Alan tells Charlie, and Charlie just asks him if he wants to go to get some food and continue having fun. Alan is shocked at the fact that Charlie had no reaction to the fact that Alan’s father had just passed away. A few days later, Charlie sent his accountant to Alan’s house to tell him he would like to give him one million dollars as an apology. Alan is surprised and he obviously cannot accept it. Later, Charlie goes to visit Alan at his office where he practices his dentistry, and he has feelings of sadness.
Angela Oakhurst, and he decides that she is the best doctor to treat Charlie with psychotherapy. Since Charlie suffers from the psychological disorder PTSD, it affects his ability to live a normal life. Dr. Oakhurst was also trying to shape Charlie. The goal in his case was to get him to move on from the fact that his wife and daughters died and continue with his life like he used to live it. The small steps were therapy and help from friends. There are a series of times where Charlie goes to see Dr. Oakhurst, and she uses psychotherapy to ask him if he has thought about what he would like to talk about in that session, but all he can tell her is that he has these things that he does not like to think about or remember. Charlie is repressing the death of his beloved family. Anytime he would get close to talking about what is on his mind, or if he was getting close to remembering or thinking about the 9/11 incident, he would ask her if the session was over yet. Dr. Oakhurst would tell him that if he wanted the session to be over, then it was over. Charlie left every time the doctor told him this. This would be due to learned