Gabriel Byrne’s smoldering Oirish eyes

A couple of years ago, I saw Gabriel Byrne in Ozzie’s coffee shop in Park Slope. It was pretty incongruous to see him there, among all the would-be writers and carefully dressed lassies angling to inspire “Missed Connections” on Craigslist.  He was probably the most unassuming dude in the place.  Come to think of it, that’s a quality I’ve always appreciated in his acting as well, the reserve that masks the intensity.  Even when he played Shelley Long’s doctor in that movie where she fatally choked on a bone and her kooky sister brought her back from the dead–even in that ridiculous (but endearing) film, he was able to create the impression of someone who thinks thoughts all the time, and conceals most of them.

Gabe is one of the reasons I gave “In Treatment” a shot–along with Dianne Wiest– despite having serious reservations about watching a show on therapy. For one thing, I expected it would just make me nostalgic for the crackle/drama/intelligence of the Melfi-Tony sessions.  Also, the subject of therapy lends itself pretty easily to sentimentality and unrealistic excesses, and I can’t deal with that.

 So, imagine my pleasant surprise at the show’s restraint.  Byrne’s reticence works really well here–it’s what he doesn’t do and say in the sessions that makes him convincing as a therapist. His facial expressions are muted and he’s mostly silent, except for the occasional incisive question. (In my experience, the patient-to-therapist talk ratio is 90-10.)  The writers also deserve credit for holding information about the patients’ characters back.  Patients don’t spill their guts to their therapists, they fool themselves and conceal things until careful questioning and continuous conversations chip away at their delusions.

I had a major problem watching Laura, one of Byrne’s patients, who’s maddeningly self-absorbed and provocative and poorly related.  I didn’t like how her sexual attraction to Byrne–which she announces to him mid-session–is treated with an air of legitimacy.  This character has an obvious personality disorder. Why, when Byrne’s taking to his own therapist (Wiest) about Laura, doesn’t he call a spade a spade and diagnose her, classify her, put her in her place, in some way? 

Final thought: the segment with the (possibly suicidal) teenaged girl is the best. It’s the most arresting and worrisome, in a way. That kid can act.