Cinema queues in Bradford could be leafleted about the reality of mental illness in protest at a new Hollywood movie.

Groups representing people with mental health problems are distressed and furious about a film in which comic Jim Carrey plays a schizophrenic who switches from "gentle" to "mental".

Me, Myself and Irene opens in this country on September 21, but Andrea Pickup, centre co-ordinator at mental health charity Mind in Bradford, said she feared the movie could lead to even worse prejudice against people with mental illnesses. "I will be discussing this with my committee and we will have to think about leafleting outside the cinema. We will also write to the film company.

"Most of our members will be galled by this. A lot of them face discrimination and personal attacks where they live. This sort of thing (the film) can build that.

"I know of single women on their own who have been in Lynfield Mount Hospital and got stones through their window at home. It's very serious. I thought we had moved away from that."

She said films and the media played a major role in shaping people's opinions about mental illness, and the idea of schizophrenics as having split personalities and being dangerous or violent was false.

In the film, Jim Carrey plays a mild-mannered traffic cop who has a mean-spirited, volatile other side. Des Crowley, senior manager for acute services at Lynfield Mount psychiatric hospital, Heights Lane, Daisy Hill, in Bradford, said he was concerned about anything which added to the stigma of mental illness. "I really do think films affect people's perceptions. We see films that show psychiatric institutions, often in America, with locked wards and barriers and guards. It adds to the drama.

"I know some people in Bradford believe that Lynfield Mount has locked wards. It probably does deter people from seeking help."

The idea of schizophrenia as split personality was totally wrong, he said. "It's a disorder of thinking and perception and it's very debilitating. The majority of people with mental illness are not violent or aggressive. Nationally, mental health charities Mind and the National Schizophrenia Fellowship have complained to the Advertising Standards Authority about publicity posters for the film which use the phrase: "From Gentle ... To Mental."