The tragedy and havoc schizophrenia can have on a small family is portrayed poignantly and realistically in the feature film Canvas, which will be screened at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at the Cable Car Cinema as a benefit for the Rhode Island chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

Canvas, which has been praised by mental health experts, is told mostly through the eyes of a 10-year-old Florida boy. He tries to cope with a mother who begins to act more and more erratically until she is institutionalized, much to the distress of herself, her son and her patient husband.

Academy Award-winning actress Marcia Gay Harden (for 2000’s Pollock) is Mary, whose flightiness and fragility goes just to the edge of being annoying on screen before she begins to fall to pieces in paranoia, misplaced outbursts and overprotective feelings toward her young son. Chris (Devon Gearhart) is embarrassed by his mother’s odd behavior at first and, once she’s institutionalized, must deal with the taunts of his schoolmates about his “crazy” mother. Frustrated, he blurts out, “Why can’t you act normal?” to her at one point. It gets so bad that Chris begins questioning his own sanity and not long afterwards gets into a fight with a classmate, who unfortunately turns out to be the son of his beleaguered father’s boss.

Dad is played by Joe Pantoliano, who once was in Rhode Island to star in the TV series Waterfront which was canceled before it aired. Pantoliano delivers a terrific understated performance as a kindhearted man who is overwhelmed by the pressures of trying to cope with his wife’s illness, his son’s problems and a job at which he feels he’s not being appreciated enough monetarily.

Gearhart is likewise superb as the son who is trying to deal with a home life that is in chaos. He’s an inadvertent victim of things that are beyond his control. Through a happy accident, however, Chris invents a sideline business for himself that brings money into the household just when it’s needed most . . . and it turns out that his mother was the inadvertent cause for his newfound success.

Although Canvas may have a too upbeat ending, considering what has come before, it otherwise gives a solid, understanding and sympathetic look at an illness that can put a family in crisis. One reason for its success is that writer-director Joseph Greco grew up watching his own mother battle schizophrenia. “Those harrowing memories had a profound impact on me,” he has said. This is why “I decided to just tell the truth — the emotional truth.”

Greco will be at the Cable Car Tuesday night to present his film and to take part afterwards in a panel discussion with Butler Hospital psychiatrist Dr. Susan Kelly and a person who has used mental health assistance. Tickets are $15 and can be reserved by calling (401) 331-3060.

mjanuson@projo.com