Awakenings (1990)
Directed by Penny Marshall
Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy research physician, uses an experimental drug to "awaken" the catatonic victims of a rare disease. Leonard is the first patient to receive the controversial treatment. His awakening, filled with awe and enthusiasm, proves a rebirth for Sayer too, as the exuberant patient reveals life's simple but unutterably sweet pleasures to the introverted doctor.
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What critics compared Awakenings to
But anyone who has seen any of this movie's uplifting-but-so-sad prototypes -- be it "The Fisher King" or "Awakenings" or any of a dozen other movies preaching a sermon of love, peace and harmony and indulgence of weirdos -- will already know the answer.
There are obvious ties to "Starman" (starring, coincidentally, Jeff Bridges as the visitor from another planet) for the space alien perspective and films like "Awakenings" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" for the psychiatric institution viewpoint.
Toss in a little Awakenings, a little Starman (including Jeff Bridges--not the spaceman this time), and a little Hollywood preachiness, and you've got yourself K-PAX.
Countless benign alien, doctor/patient, fish-out-of-water and asylum movies all come to mind: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "Awakenings," "City of Angels," "The Muse," "E.T.," "Starman" and far too many others to list.
The film superficially resembles the well-regarded 1987 foreign film "Man Facing Southeast," but its similarities to "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," "The Fisher King" and "Awakenings" run deeper, though those were all much better movies than this one.
After the director's last film - the clinical, emotionally eviscerating trauma of "The Wings of a Dove" - it's as if he has decided to go to the other extreme, presenting a naive, touchy-feely fable, a blend of "Starman" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest", by way of "Awakenings".
Though rooted in fact, the movie feels like a synthetically engineered mishmash of Rain Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and most prominently Charly, the 1968 fantasy in which Cliff Robertson played a retarded man who gains and then loses a genius-level IQ.
Though rooted in fact, the movie feels like a synthetically engineered mishmash of Rain Man, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and most prominently Charly, the 1968 fantasy in which Cliff Robertson played a retarded man who gains and then loses a genius-level IQ.
As Dustin Hoffman did with autism in Rain Man, De Niro has evidently studied the relevant symptoms and reproduces them chillingly.
Just as Tom Cruise was underrated for playing the straight man to Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Robert De Niro will probably receive most of the accolades for his expert portrayal of a brain-damaged man.
A sweetly stirring drama in the spirit of "Rain Man," it explores the mutual gain in a union between an emotionally handicapped man and his neurologically disabled friend.
With Robin Williams as neurologist Oliver Sacks - here Dr Sayer - and De Niro as Leonard Lowe, the most afflicted Parkinson's case on the ward, we are deep in Rain Man territory (a terrain notable for its squashiness) in another homage to catatonia.
While it’s hard to parse the credit in a finished screenplay without knowing of earlier versions, it seems clear that the filmmakers were fortunate in having two of the best writers in the business, Steven Zaillian (“Awakenings,” “Schindler’s List” “Gangs of New York”) and Aaron Sorkin (“The American President,” “The Social Network,” TV’s “The West Wing”) working on it.
Zaillian, who is probably best known for adapting Schindler’s List, for which he won an Oscar, tends to write more serious dramas like Gangs of New York, Awakenings, and the upcoming The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.