The panic attack scene in "Puss in Boots: The Last Wish" has been praised for its realism and went viral on Twitter, being compared favorably to other animated portrayals of panic attacks, such as in "Velma" and "Paw Patrol: The Movie".
Discussions about these scenes often highlight the fundamental challenge of portraying a panic attack on screen. It's not just the risk of inaccuracy or resorting to insensitive clichés, but also the fact that panic attacks typically happen internally.
In "Puss in Boots", several filmmaking techniques are used to present these internal feelings to the viewer: animated metaphors for symptoms, distortion of space and time, color palette changes, and subtle camera usage to externalize the character's internal emotions.
In comparison, scenes in "Velma" or "Paw Patrol" that use similar effects fail to resonate emotionally in the same way. Other examples like "The Aviator" or "8th Grade" are cited for their nuanced representations of stress and anxiety.
Thanks to these talented artists, anxiety, as difficult as it is to describe or represent, can be made visible and better understood.