Brain on Fire is a 2016 autobiographical drama movie directed and written by Irish director Gerard Barrett. The movie is based on Susannah Cahalan’s memoir Brain on Fire: My Month of Madness and stars Chloë Grace Moretz, Jenny Slate, Thomas Mann, Tyler Perry, Carrie-Anne Moss and Richard Armitage.
The movie begins with a brief flash forward that shows us Susannah in a catatonic, suffering state in a hospital bed.
The flash forward stops. Susannah is a reporter for The New York Post, engaged to Stephen. Her life seems to be going well: she is employed, has friends, and a boyfriend who loves her.
However, in the middle of her birthday party, she has a brief episode of spacing out. For a moment, a very brief moment, she loses track of reality. As brief as it is, Susannah doesn’t really pay attention to what happened.