The Narcissist’s Playbook

One of the most unnerving twists of the year occurs about two-thirds of the way into “The Narcissist’s Playbook,” a documentary about people who are incapable of empathy and, because they do not feel love, compassion, tenderness, or joy, often inflict abuse on others to feel powerful or just to feel anything at all.

It begins with a telling perspective-shifting quote from someone we will spend a lot of time with over the course of the film, Sam Vaknin, the Israeli author of books including Malignant Self Love: Narcissism Revisited. He says that it is not the evil of the narcissist that fools us; it is our own humanity projecting onto everyone else the emotions that feel so essential to us we cannot imagine there is anyone who cannot care about other people.

It is not surprising that director Mark Vicente would be drawn to this subject. He became first an accolyte of NXIVM and its founder, Keith Raniere, and then a whistleblower who helped bring the organization and its leader down, including a criminal trial ending with a 120 year sentence.

Most people think of narcissists as egotists who are consumed with their own status and their own needs. This film uses the term to mean what in non-clinical terms we might call psychopaths or sociopaths or borderline personality disorder, people we think of as doing whatever makes them feel safe or powerful, no matter who gets hurt.

It is structured like a typical documentary, with a lot of talking heads — experts and survivors of relationships with narcissists from seven different countries. But some elements are unusual. Four of the experts are themselves, according to the film’s press materials, “self-confessed, self-aware malignant narcissists.”

Vaknin earns our sympathy and his own credibility right away, confessing that he went to prison for securities fraud, and he is now doing his best to educate others about what narcisissm is and how to protect ourselves.

We also hear from actress Evan Rachel Wood, who at 18 met punk rocker Marilyn Manson, then in his mid-30s. He quickly persuaded her to move in with him and then, she tells us, he isolated and abused her. It was only when she played a character on the HBO series “Westworld” that she located within herself the courage to leave him. (Manson denies her allegations.)

We learn from the academic experts that what Wood describes is typical of the narcissist, who begins by “love-bombing,” telling victims how special they are, how only he or she really sees and understands them, how much they need each other. It is “fast, intense, magical.” Step 2 is isolating the victim, separating them from their friends and family. Wood says, they want us to know “the only safe place is with them.” Next, they counter all of the building you up by tearing you down, first by devaluing you, destabilizing you so you try to regain that fast, intense, magical, and SAFE feeling again. And, when someone tries to leave or expose them, the accusations start. Non-narcisssist are looking for peace; narcissists live for chaos.

Step 4 will be familiar to anyone who has seen Ingrid Bergman’s Oscar-winning performance in “Gaslight.” You don’t have time to doubt the relationship because this step has you doubting yourself, even your own ability to discern reality. And then comes the discord, drama, distractions, and lies. Another victim describes his marriage, which followed exactly this pattern.

Those who have a hard time understanding people whose underestanding extends only to their own interests tend to look for causes, abusive families, past traumas. Their first impulse may be to try to be reassuring, to feel sorry for narcissists who say they do not know what it feels like to feel love or happiness and want to heal them. But, as one of the experts points out, many people experience abuse and trauma and do not become narcissists. We are told fairly early that a true crime investigative reporter is searching for a particular narcissist who has hurt many women by posing as a therapist, but we do not find out until much later who that person is and what he will do when he is exposed.

Anyone who watches this film will think of people who fit the pattern. And everyone who watches will come away prepared to recognize and block anyone who tries those tactics.

Parents should know that this film includes discussions of physical and emotional abuse and trauma with very strong language.

Family discussion: What did you learn from this film? What should people do to protect themselves from predators?

If you like this, try: the NXIVM documentary, “The Vow”