She will surely talk about the film\u2019s strong Chicago connections. Its soundtrack is composed and performed by Jeff Tweedy, the lead vocalist and guitarist of Wilco, who lives on the North Side. The narrating voice you\u2019ll hear is that of Bob Odenkirk, the suburban native and busy star of such shows as \u201cBreaking Bad\u201d and \u201cBetter Call Saul\u201d and on and on.<\/p>\n
The focus of the film is this country\u2019s shameful and destructive mental health system. There is a chilling intimacy to this film, for it brings us up close to some of the people (and families) suffering. We meet Mark Rippee, a blind man who has been dealing with schizophrenia for more than 15 years. He is somehow managing to live homeless in a California town, even as his sisters attempt to help him by fighting the system and caring for him as they can.<\/p>\n
We meet Carmelo and Kendra Burgos, a loving couple trying desperately to find calm waters in the face of Carmelo\u2019s bipolar disorder, rocking the familial boat. We meet a young man shot by the police. We get a solid (if depressing) look at the history of mental illness \u201ctreatments.\u201d There is a bit of politics, with California Gov. Gavin Newsom trying to do some right things.<\/p>\n
There is a small slice of hope even as we meet Kevin Powers. He was the youngest of the two sons of Ron Powers and Honoree Fleming. Ron Powers was, many of you may remember, the 1973 Pulitzer Prize-winning TV critic for the Sun-Times. He would leave town and write 20-some critically acclaimed and best-selling books, such as a couple about Mark Twain (they were both natives of Hannibal, Missouri) and \u201cFlags of Our Fathers\u201d (the basis for the Clint Eastwood film). He collaborated with Sen. Ted Kennedy in the memoir \u201cTrue Compass.\u201d He also taught and won an Emmy for commentary on \u201cCBS News Sunday Morning.\u201d<\/p>\n
He would marry Fleming, a professor, and they would live in Vermont and raise their boys, Dean and Kevin. To see photos of them when younger is to imagine a happy family. But things did not go that way.<\/p>\n
Both sons, Dean and younger Kevin, were smart and creative. Kevin was a guitar prodigy. But his behavior became increasingly unstable and strange, and he had trouble dealing with medications. He was just shy of his 21st birthday when he died by suicide.<\/p>\n
Eventually, almost a decade after that suicide (and some troubles with Dean, who would also be diagnosed with schizophrenia), Powers did what he does best, and the result was a book, \u201cNo One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America\u201d (Grand Central Publishing).<\/p>\n
The first sentence of the book is \u201cThis is the book I promised myself I would never write,\u201d and he later calls it \u201ca call to arms on behalf of these people for any society that dares describe itself as decent.\u201d<\/p>\n
Director Freedman heard that call when the book was published in 2017. She and Powers had known one another through their work at CBS, and she credits him and his book as her inspirations for the documentary.<\/p>\n
![\""No](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/CTC-L-ENT-RON-POWERS-02.jpg\")
“No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America” by Ron Powers. (Grand Central Publishing)<\/p>\n