"King of California" is an independent comedy about the relationship between a sixteen year old girl who has fallen through the welfare system (and supports herself by working at McDonalds) and her father (Michael Douglas), recently released from hospital and who suffers from bipolar depression. As soon as I saw the bipolar and bearded Michael Douglas spinning and learning Spanish by tape I could feel a tide of revulsion for this movie rising in me. I didn"t like the pop-light portrayal of mental illness the movie was giving me, nor Douglas. However, after a while I got over this and my resistance to enjoying the movie subsided a little. As the farcical story unfolded I submitted to it, and even enjoyed parts of it. By the end I did not feel like I despised this movie, but rather didn"t care. I think the problem is that, unlike the portrayal of mental illness and desperate people in Terry Gilliam"s "The Fisher King", "King of California" fails to portray the father"s point of view, instead choosing the responsible daughter as narrator, and narrative focus. Instead of being given insight into the mind of someone with bipolar disorder we are given the cold and rational views of someone else. Thus we end up laughing at mental illness, if we laugh at all. And I can feel the revulsion returning.