Winnie becomes more disturbed and depressed after Seth breaks up with her and turns schizophrenic - imagining events which never occurred, and often living in her own world- until one day she meets a guy named Ray, bearing a close resemblance to Seth. Seeing this, her best friend Yvonne encourages her to go out with Hou so she can forget her misery and start over. As time passes, Winnie realises that the relationship with Ray is so alike her previous relationship with Seth, and when things seem to be running smoothly, the relationship begins to sours, just like with Seth. She begins to doubt his feelings and the lines between reality and fantasy start blurring again for her, leading her to question: did this all exist in the first place?

This is an interesting study of madness. While I wouldn't say that "Diary" even comes close to "A Beautiful Mind" on account that it lacks the gloss and finesse of the Hollywood production, it is nonetheless an accurate depiction of the delusions, confusion and paranoia that afflict the mind of the sufferer. I know this for a fact because I know of someone with the same psychiatric problem and I am very familiar with the effects and symptoms of the disease. What got me was that director Oxide Pang (of the famed Pang Brothers) included all the little details, including the bit about the television newscaster. All schizophrenics have this delusion. Often, they will sit in front of the TV and have conversations with the newscaster, believing that the newscaster is talking to them and broadcasting their personal secrets to the world.

In "Diary", the paranoid schizophrenic is Winnie (Charlene Choi). She is introduced innocuously enough, going about town looking for her missing boyfriend Seth. To everyone, she looks normal and acts normal. She stalks Ray (Shawn Yue) even to the office, and one day, stops him in the streets and asks him to have coffee with her. She apologises for pursuing him, its just that he looks so much like her former boyfriend but if he were to give her the time of day, just for a little while, she would get over him. With Ray compliant, she then proceeds to invite him over for dinner.

Winnie also seems to have a confidante called Yvonne who appears inside her apartment at the strangest of hours, admonishing her or giving her advice about what to do. The second time Yvonne appears is sometime in the middle of the night when Ray is sleeping in the bedroom.

All this seems normal enough although the audience is given an inkling that all is not well when the next morning, Ray says he doesn't need to go to work anymore as he would just like to stay home with her. From then on, the true depth of her dementia is revealed, as she talks to a now strangely sullen Ray and flies into fits of fury.

The audience is not completely left in the dark as throughout the first part of the film, we are provided with short graphical insights into what is tormenting Winnie, thanks to some special effects. However, nothing is overdone here, unlike "Recycle", one of the production company's earlier films where they had zombies falling out of the sky and all that.

Winnie hears voices and sees things that are not there. Some of these things are portrayed and often, they are frightening. She has trouble differentiating what is real and what is not and along the way, as with real schizophrenics, she loses her own identity, forgets what she says and does, goes around accusing people of transgressions they never did and has no concept of time, mixing up events that happened 10 years ago with yesterday, today and tomorrow. The diary that Winnie records (and this is another thing with schizophrenics, they like to write, but mostly on walls and mirrors) is a documentation of her hallucination and fantasy (which, she believes, are real), but when it is presented to the police as proof of a murder, it cannot be used as evidence as she has recorded events up to September 2007.

I won't say anything else beyond this point except that "Diary" is a commendable effort from the Pang Brothers. Those unfamiliar with schizophrenia may think this is just a dramatisation of possible events but the truth is closer than you think. Schizophrenics behave the way Winnie does. Yes, they are prone to violence (the schizophrenic that I knew stabbed someone in the face in a fit of rage, but thankfully, it was just a minor wound) and yet, they can be sane enough to plan the act, go about their daily activities like shopping and know the exact change. Charlene Choi and Isabella Leong must have done their homework for the good portrayal that they did. A watchable film in all, and a frightening piece of education on what it is like to descend into madness.