In the movie "Fargo"; what diagnosis do you think the Japanese guy had?

Question

This is quiz.

In the movie Fargo, a female police officer is trying to solve some crimes involving murder and kidnapping in her small town.

It doesn't seem to have anything to do with the main plot, but there's an interesting subplot where the police officer agrees to meet with a former class mate to talk about old times. He is of Japanese descent, which is only significant because he is the only Asian character in the movie. He tells her a story about how he was married to a girl they went to school with, and she died. He cries and the police officer tries to comfort him.

Later, the police officer finds out it's all a made up story. The girl is still alive and she was never married to the Japanese guy. No one knows why he made it up.

I think this fits a certain diagnosis in the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental DIsorders). If you guess the right one, or if you convince me it is a different diagnosis, I will award you best answer with all stars.

Answer 1

I love this movie and remember the scene well. I was kind of thinking he might have Histrionic Personality Disorder but I don't know if that's what you're thinking. In HPD a person can be flirtatious, charming and very open. But when they don't get the attention they strongly crave they will resort to making up stories and possibly making a scene. People with HPD often have excessive public displays of emotion and end up embarrassing family and friends.

I was also thinking of Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome which can happen with people who are severe alcoholics but typically people with this syndrome will appear sickly and don't typically make up stories to draw attention but rather because of memory loss.