What Was up with the Colonel's Wife?

Severe depression would be my guess.

In addition to the depression, I felt that the mother was a victim of abuse. In the scene where Col Fitts is watching TV, she's leaning far away from him, as if she's afraid of touching him.

THE RAP CRITIC:
http://thatguywiththeglasses.com/videolinks/teamt/rap-critic

I got the impression that she suffered from Alzheimer's disease. When Ricky and Jane are watching the paper bag video, he says at one point that he needs to remember. I felt like this was due in part to the fact that his mother didn't seem to remember anything, or even be aware of the context in which Ricky is speaking to her when he says he is leaving. Her response is wear a raincoat. Implying that she was in a completely different place mentally.

She was obviously getting beat on regular basis by her husband . The guy was angry because secretly wanted to be screwing other men. I imagine the trauma she was going through was terrible with the beating and forced anal sex. She was a broken woman.

I figured she was basically driven to a zombie-like state because of her husband's tyranny.
But I found it odd how the film showed NO examples of this whatsoever. She has no bruises, he never yells at her.
Ricky is getting slapped around every 10 minutes even though he does nothing wrong, so why doesn't the mom?



I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

i figure it was early dementia, probably as a result of being beaten on a regular... i have a friend who used to get beat and she says its hard for her to remember certain things, and some things (from our high school days, eg) she cannot recall at all....
being beaten, depressed, anti-depression pills, pills in general, who knows... the point came across though, there is something obviously wrong with the mother, and her zombie-like state most likely is a direct result of living with the father....

It's mercy, compassion and forgiveness I lack. Not rationality...

I would say she was heavily medicated for clinical depression. There's no evidence that she was being abused.

"I am always happy to engage in POLITE discourse."

In the trivia section, this is listed in reference to the actress who plays the Colonel's wife:

'Sam Mendes gave Allison Janney a book of paintings by Edvard Munch. He told her, "Your character is in there somewhere."'

Probably the most widely known painting by Munch is of the man screaming. I think this represents her character well. It's up to personal interpretation but I think her character was very lucid compared to everyone else in the film, and she used Zoloft and other psych drugs to numb and distance herself from it all. I don't think she has dementia, I think she's very aware. It's just painful so she's deliberately self-medicated and absolved herself from the reality.