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Awakenings by Stephen Farber Awakenings (written by Steven Zaillian and directed by Penny Marshall) is one of the most emotionally satisfying movies of the last year, and the emotions it stirs are not all cheerful ones. Based on a book by Oliver Sacks, the film dramatizes an amazing true story. Working in a hospital that houses mainly catatonic mental patients, Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) discovers that a drug, L-DOPA, which had been used successfully on people suffering from Parkinson's disease, can also reawaken these brain-damaged casualties. Robin Williams creates a character who is believably fallible rather than saintly. Dr. Sayer achieves his results because he's a single-minded researcher driven by a challenge, not because he's a bleeding heart. At first he regards his patients as exotic laboratory creatures not unlike the earthworms he had scrutinized at his last job. In the course of his experiments his own humanity is awakened, and Williams makes the transformation convincingly gradual and modest rather than triumphant. 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. But it's Williams who holds the movie together. PAGE 1 | 2 |
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Williams's growing devotion to his patients is moving, but what makes Awakenings truly memorable is its tragic quality. For the awakenings prove to be impermanent; the effects of L-DOPA eventually wear off, and the patients revert to their vegetative state. Although the film wants to celebrate the resilience of the human spirit, we are left contemplating something more disturbing--the profound limitations of modern medicine and of all our highly trumpeted miracle drugs. It is difficult to watch the film and not think of other diseases, like cancer and AIDS, that demonstrate a maddening ability to outsmart and subvert all promising drug treatments. The filmmakers become a bit nervous about this melancholy theme at the very end. I didn't mind the hermetic Williams's tentative overtures to the nurse (Julie Kavner) whose advances he has resisted earlier in the film. But the final image of Williams working patiently with the near catatonic De Niro overstates the inspirational message. Nevertheless, Awakenings is a deeply affecting movie--a heartfelt tribute to a dedicated doctor, and a painful reminder of the bitter realities that no amount of dedication can overcome. What did you think of this movie? Sound off in the Movie Forum. PAGE 1 | 2 |