Trick of the Dark- Character Rachael

This is the character profile for Rachael who plays the wife of our protagonist, she is a support role that I originally wanted to simply serve the purpose of giving Michael some back story, however, as the script developed to be more three dimensional so too did her character. The best way for me to describe Rachael is that she is a considerate person who is devoted wholly to her husband but she is certainly feeling the strain of their relationship. This I feel gives her a very human quality in this sense and currently the best example of this I can think of in a fictional character is Beth from Rick and Morty.

Beth is a very strong woman who loves her husband dearly but feel the strain of their relationship, while in Rick and Morty, Beth struggles with Jerry (her husband) being an idiot, Rachael struggles with dealing with her husband's mental health issues and his self inflicted isolation, though this is never explicitly said, this is the metaphor of the film that Scott is in an emotional pit and has eventually taken it too far to the point where he has attempted suicide. The other similarity in their relationships is the fact that the woman is the rock for the man when they don't have an awful lot in their life besides this. Though neither men would admit this is the case as they are both trying to get through life on their own without any real regard for the woman who is their rock through it all. The other character I thought of during my writing of Rachael's character was Carmella Soprano from the hit TV show The Sopranos. In the show she is wife to a mob boss, Tony Soprano, whilst he is struggling with his personal life and his work to the extent that he is having panic attacks and collapsing from them fairly often.

Throughout Tony's ordeal, Carmela stays strong and supportive for him in his troubles, however, she does not compromise her code and morals in order to do this, she very much still holds Tony accountable for his actions and doesn't give him any kind of easy ride when he wrongs her. This is key because there are I feel three attitudes to mental health, to ignore it and say its all in people's heads (which it is but its not as black and white as that, it is not as if its a choice), to learn someone is mentally ill and then treat them very differently in a similar way that people react by making someone a saint when they're dying. And then there is the third and what I believe to be the correct way to react, which is to be there and supportive but still be fair with them so if they do something wrong they should be told and they should not be allowed to use their illness as an excuse unless something is a result of their illness. So for example when Tony cheats on Carmela, she leaves him, it would be easy for her to stay so his health doesn't deteriorate as a result or for her to blame his condition, but instead she holds him accountable and does what I feel is the right thing to do. To link this back to Rachael, it is that strength I want to also instill in her so that she is strong for Scott but also fair.
That essentially sums up Rachael's key character aspects as she isn't a huge part in the current script so doesn't need to be as well defined, though she is still important and I don't want her to appear 2-D.