The Film
The film opens with Mahowny in conversation with a
psychiatrist in prison, stating that his ‘secret life’ is a lot
less secret than anyone else’s at the moment. This sets the scene
for the back story to be told and begins from the point that
Mahowny, a successful banker, has just been promoted in the
Canadian bank where he works. His girlfriend, played by Minnie
Driver, also works as a clerk at the same bank and soon shows that
she is frustrated by her shy, workaholic boyfriend, who never seems
to have enough time for their relationship. The viewer’s opinion of
Mahowny is immediately changed when two ‘bookies’ turn up at
Mahowny’s office asking him to pay the money that he owes them or
violence will ensue. As he doesn’t have the money himself, he
realises that he can use some funds from a client account to pay
these debts, initially planning to repay the unofficial loan.
However, once he has successfully defrauded the bank and realises
that he can get away with it easily, he becomes locked into a cycle
of taking greater sums of money from the bank to place ever larger
bets with his ‘bookies’. He also begins to travel regularly to a
casino in Atlantic City to play the tables, lying to his
long-suffering girlfriend in the process. She slowly comes to
understand the nature of his problem. The unscrupulous casino boss
in Atlantic City, played by John Hurt, becomes fascinated by the
unglamorous Mahowny and soon realises that he can make a lot of
money from him as Mahowny’s gambling problem becomes evident. It is
in the scenes at the casino that the viewer shares Mahowny’s
compulsion to place bets without regard to the consequences of
losing huge sums of money. Any attempt by his girlfriend to make
Mahowny acknowledge his problem is met with complete denial by him.
Although she has no idea of the extent of his financial
difficulties, she alone understands the gravity of his situation
but decides to stick by him regardless of this. The final
unravelling occurs as the police investigate the ‘bookies’, who
have continued to place bets for Mahowny, finally leading them to
Mahowny himself.
The viewer is finally returned to the conversation
between Mahowny and the psychiatrist in prison. Mahowny is asked to
rate the thrill he got from gambling on a scale of one to a
hundred. He answers with ‘a hundred’ and then says that the biggest
thrill he has had outside of gambling would score twenty on that
same scale. Mahowny goes on to acknowledge that he must now accept
a maximum of twenty out of a hundred for excitement in his future
life and ends by saying “twenty’s OK”.
Relevance to the field of Mental Health
As gambling is a common and accepted leisure
activity in many societies, and with an increasing number of
avenues now open to gambling on the Internet, it is likely that
this problem will increase. It is timely to suggest that doctors,
and in particular psychiatrists, may need to be more aware of this
important public health issue. As it is also associated with
significant psychiatric comorbidity and often has a negative impact
on family and society it is important that health professionals are
confident about the detection, diagnosis and management of
pathological gambling. Owning Mahowny provides a very good
portrait of how problem gambling may present in an individual who
appears to be trustworthy and balanced in his social and working
life, making detection of the problem more difficult. The film
demonstrates very well the addictive nature of Mahowny’s gambling
at the expense of everything else in his life, resulting in a
downward spiral of self-destruction. Owning Mahowny also
demonstrates how vulnerable an individual can become whilst in the
grip of this addiction as it shows the casino owner ‘taking Mahowny
for all he has got’. In the real life case, the casino was ordered
to close for a day by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission
(something previously unheard of) for giving Molony preferential
treatment and encouraging him to gamble with very large sums of
money without seeking to find out their source.
For a good introduction to the topic of
pathological gambling, there is an excellent article by S. George
and V. Murali, published in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
(2005) 11: 450-456, called Pathological
gambling: an overview of assessment and
treatment, which is freely available. A reading
of this article alongside a viewing of the film would provide a
very good understanding of this disorder. In an editorial in
The Psychiatrist (2013), 37, 1-3, entitled Problem
gambling: what can psychiatrists do?, S George, H
Bowden-Jones, J Orford and N Petry discuss how psychiatrists can
screen for the disorder and what interventions psychiatrists can
offer once they have made a diagnosis (abstract). An
even more recent article in Advances in Psychiatric Treatment
(2013) 19: 23-29, by S. George, O Ijeoma and H. Bowden-Jones
(abstract) entitled Gamblers Anonymous:
overlooked and underused?, offers some detail about
Gamblers
Anonymous as a treatment option, using the twelve
steps approach common to Alcoholics Anonymous. The authors note
that this treatment can work very well for some individuals and is
also compatible with the use of CBT for gambling addiction.
I would highly recommend this film to all of those
working in the field of mental health wanting to gain a greater
understanding of problem gambling.
• More information about Owning Mahowny
can be found at IMDB, as
can a short trailer.
• Owning Mahowny can be purchased at
amazon.co.uk
• Minds on Film is written by Consultant
Psychiatrist, Dr Joyce Almeida
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