7 Movies That Explain Jung's Most Misunderstood Idea | Explained

Individuation in Seven Films

The video argues that Jungian individuation is often portrayed backwards: it isn’t a self-improvement quest someone chooses to begin. It starts when something in life breaks, and people often spend a long time blaming the wrong thing. Across seven films, the essay traces the shock, the projection of inner conflicts onto others, and the difficult return to ordinary responsibilities.

Perfect Days (2023)

Hirayama’s carefully repeated days as a Tokyo toilet cleaner look like a portrait of contentment. The essay reads his routine as a near-perfect persona—the outward identity he has built, perhaps around something left unspoken.

When a visit from his sister brings news of their father, Hirayama breaks down, then returns to his routine. The closing image of him crying and smiling at once leaves the change unresolved: something has been let in, not neatly fixed.

Ikiru (1952)

After learning he is dying, office worker Kanji Watanabe tries to replace what he has lost with pleasure and excitement. A young coworker’s description of making toys for children helps redirect him. Rather than escape his job, he returns to it and pushes a stalled public project through the bureaucracy.

His colleagues can’t make sense of his transformation, so they settle on the least challenging explanation: he must have been confused because he was dying. The essay emphasizes that individuation isn’t simply personal rebellion; it can mean meeting one’s obligations more fully.

Adaptation (2002)

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman can’t adapt a book about orchids and blames the book, the industry, and his breezy twin brother, Donald. The twin represents everything Charlie has disowned in himself.

A story about their different memories of a high-school crush gives Charlie a chance to see that his judgments of Donald are also judgments of his own hidden qualities. The punchline is the screenplay credit: Charlie Kaufman and Donald Kaufman—even though Donald is fictional. The film’s joke becomes part of its point: accepting the disowned self can make something usable.

A Serious Man (2009)

Larry Gopnik faces a cascade of troubles—his marriage, his job, money, and a student’s threats—and repeatedly seeks an explanation from God and the rabbis. But he asks for a reason, not for what he might do.

One rabbi bluntly tells him to “stop looking for the reason”; Larry hears it as no answer at all. The film’s darkly comic frustration is that he keeps demanding certainty while life refuses to provide it.

First Reformed (2017)

Reverend Ernst Toller becomes consumed by an environmental crisis after a parishioner’s husband dies. The essay stresses that Toller’s concerns are real, which makes his fixation harder to recognize as a trap: moral conviction gives blame the appearance of duty.

As the cause grows in his mind, the people trying to care for him—including Esther—recede from view. Jung’s term for being overtaken by something vast is inflation; the video sees Toller’s grand sense of purpose as injuring his connection to individual people.

Groundhog Day (1993)

Phil Connors is trapped repeating the same day, with no one to blame for the predicament. He cycles through pleasure, manipulation—learning Rita’s preferences to try to win her—and escape, including repeated suicide attempts. None works.

Change arrives through uncalculated acts: practicing piano, sculpting ice, and helping people around town. The old man still dies despite Phil’s efforts, an important reminder that his growth doesn’t give him control over the world. He ultimately becomes useful to the town he once despised.

Wild Strawberries (1957)

Retired professor Isak Borg dreams of a clock without hands and a hearse containing his own body. He changes his travel plans and drives instead, following an impulse he can’t yet explain.

During the journey, his daughter-in-law confronts him with the emotional coldness he has passed on to his son. His mother’s handless gold watch echoes the dream, turning the accusation into something he must reckon with. The film suggests that change can begin late in life and remain modest: a small, unearned moment of warmth can still matter.

Final Thought

Individuation may leave someone with less grandeur than they hoped for, but something more truthful. The process begins without permission; people often recognize it only afterwards.

Personalities and Figures Discussed

Hirayama (Perfect Days); Kanji Watanabe (Ikiru); Charlie and Donald Kaufman (Adaptation); Larry Gopnik (A Serious Man); Ernst Toller (First Reformed); Phil Connors and Rita (Groundhog Day); Isak Borg and Marianne (Wild Strawberries); Carl Jung; and Marie-Louise von Franz.