You need the release but you cannot afford to go near your own material. These films give you somewhere else to put it. Real feelings, someone else's story -- the distance is exactly what makes it work.
WWII American Army Medic Desmond T. Doss, who served during the Battle of Okinawa, refuses to kill people and becomes the first Conscientious Objector in American history to receive the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
Lets you feel it safely
With the help of a German bounty hunter, a freed slave sets out to rescue his wife from a brutal Mississippi plantation owner.
Gives you somewhere else to put it. The distance is the whole mechanism.
The distance works
Bud Baxter is a minor clerk in a huge New York insurance company, until he discovers a quick way to climb the corporate ladder. He lends out his apartment to the executives as a place to take their mistresses. Although he often has to deal with the aftermath of their visits, one night he's left with a major problem to solve.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
Lets you feel it safely
Held in an L.A. interrogation room, Verbal Kint attempts to convince the feds that a mythic crime lord, Keyser Soze, not only exists, but was also responsible for drawing him and his four partners into a multi-million dollar heist that ended with an explosion in San Pedro harbor – leaving few survivors. Verbal lures his interrogators with an incredible story of the crime lord's almost supernatural prowess.
Gives you somewhere else to put it. The distance is the whole mechanism.
The distance works
A family dog – with a near-human soul and a philosopher's mind – evaluates his life through the lessons learned by his human owner, a race-car driver.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
The distance works
Lets you feel it safely
Will Hunting is a headstrong, working-class genius who is failing the lessons of life. After one too many run-ins with the law, Will's last chance is a psychology professor, who might be the only man who can reach him.
Gives you somewhere else to put it. The distance is the whole mechanism.
Lets you feel it safely
To take down South Boston's Irish Mafia, the police send in one of their own to infiltrate the underworld, not realizing the syndicate has done likewise. While an undercover cop curries favor with the mob kingpin, a career criminal rises through the police ranks. But both sides soon discover there's a mole among them.
Gives you somewhere else to put it. The distance is the whole mechanism.
The distance works
After getting a green card in exchange for assassinating a Cuban government official, Tony Montana stakes a claim on the drug trade in Miami. Viciously murdering anyone who stands in his way, Tony eventually becomes the biggest drug lord in the state, controlling nearly all the cocaine that comes through Miami. But increased pressure from the police, wars with Colombian drug cartels and his own drug-fueled paranoia serve to fuel the flames of his eventual downfall.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
The distance works
After more than thirty years of service as one of the Navy’s top aviators, and dodging the advancement in rank that would ground him, Pete “Maverick” Mitchell finds himself training a detachment of TOP GUN graduates for a specialized mission the likes of which no living pilot has ever seen.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
The distance works
In a picture-perfect seaside town, an insurance salesman begins to realize that his entire existence may be staged and observed by a vast unseen audience as part of a long-running real-time reality TV show.
Real enough to work, far enough away that it does not cost you anything personal.
Lets you feel it safely
The right film for the right state is a specific thing. These are specific.