This film is a true story and like with all true stories we get a fantasized version of the story itself. We are dealing here with post encephalitic patients who have become absolutely catatonic. A new drug, quite experimental and that has not been tested really on humans properly, is used in a psychiatric institution where they have a dozen or so patients in that situation. First one patient, and then the whole group. The result is spectacular. They wake up and they start having a normal life, well normal is a big word. They just try to adjust to the reality they finally see and within the limited freedom they can have within an institution out of which they cannot go without being totally supervised by professionals. The first patient who was provided with the drug, Leonard, becomes very autonomous to the point of establishing a relationship with a visiting young woman and then asking for the right to just go out on his own for a walk. The film uses the word "miracle" too much. There is no miracle with chemical stuff and drugs. There are only physiological reactions to the drugs. They can be positive. They can be negative. They can last for a long time with a regular treatment or use, or they can only last a short period of time, an awakening and nothing else and then the patients go back to the catatonic state they used to be in and they may have spent thirty years in. The film at the end is not hiding this fact, but the term "miracle" is false in this context.The film insists on the reactions of the patients, on the way they enter a phase where they want to have some kind of real living, or at least what they imagine they would enjoy. The film is totally ignorant of a simple fact. These catatonic people are catatonic for us but they still can hear, they still can see, they still can enjoy the benefits of their senses and they know the standard language that is spoken around them. The film does not concentrate on this fact we know today, we would concentrate on today: the patients have heard a lot and seen a lot, even if they are locked up in an institution. But they have received a lot of oral language spoken around them and there is no reason to believe they did not understand it since they may have lost the power to speak, but we know with autistic kids who do not speak for years, that when they start speaking they start speaking normal language because they have learned and assimilated language while in their autistic non-speaking phase.We know today that it is important to go on speaking to catatonic and comatose people because they hear and they receive that language and they react to it, even if we have no external sign about it. It is amazing at times to find out that a person who gets out of a long comatose state is able to say what he heard and had saved in his memory during that period. It is not systematic. It is not automatic. It is not perfect and extensive. But it is, even if limited. Just the same way there is a womb memory that enables a newborn to remember what it was like in the womb, there is a comatose memory that enables the comatose person when he/she comes out to remember what it was like when they were "gone," and what was said about them.I must say that in 1990 we were still far away from what we know today. The film though is interesting because of the concentration on the people around the sick people. The family for one, at least one mother, the first patient's mother, Ms. Lowe, who is grateful while the awakening lasts but becomes dubious and skeptical when the awakening comes to an end, and Leonard, her son, falls back into the horror of a semi-catatonic state. The doctors are also shown as being over-cautious, and yet they are justified to be so but we cannot get out of the picture their refusal of a free walk in the city for Leonard as being a cause of the change in the "community" because the patients all knew about the rebellious state Leonard fell into afterward that also caused a relapse in his disease. The most interesting people are the nurses and other personnel. They are supportive of the change and the new experimental drugs because they want their patients to become more normal people, people with whom they can speak and exchange some conversation. That's the positive point. The medical profession is not necessarily of the torturing brutal unempathetic type. Somewhere they are still human. And that's maybe the most important "miracle." The battle for human treatments is not lost before being fought because the professional personnel in these situations or hospital wards just hope their patients' situation can be improved. So, a good film for a hot summer night.Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

Movie Review: "Awakenings" (1990)When real-life Neurologist Oliver Sacks M.D. (1933-2015) presents his essays on treating a rare neurological brain-infecting virus that completely shuts down the motoric as sensual systems by alternating the human immune system, which had been fulminate adapted by screenwriter Steve Zaillian, who eventually gets recognized for his decisive as well-researched material into cinematic dramatizations, which director Penny Marshall, who in her own right just departed from a huge hit at the U.S. domestic box offices with "Big" starring Tom Hanks, at age 31, when here Robert De Niro, playing the Encephalitis-infected patient Leonard for three decades in coma-like state of no-interaction with any opposite human beings, and Robin Williams with gentle-retreats of a compassionated Doctor Malcolm Sayer as synonym for off-screen credited Oliver Sacks.Together, alongside with "state of the art" cinematography of no further experiments, but perfectly-received coverage and an realistically-designed Mental Institution environment of 1969 in New York City's outcasting borough of the Bronx, cast and crew find a balanced picture, where any medically-as-humane interested spectator can witness at least on-screen, what it is means to live with utmost life-threatening conditions, when medication, here at that time newly develop neurotransmitting-dopamine (drug) wakes the brain-virus-infected patients for the time being, in witnessing action beats by Robert De Niro as Leonard, who runs through a full cycle of emotions of being completly rehabilitated to shrink under the pressures of life itself, while meeting as caring people all-around with suspense-peaking as heart-breaking scene of dancing with Penelope Ann Miller as Paula under slight hints of a highly-emotional soundtrack by Randy Newman.© 2018 Felix Alexander Dausend (Cinemajesty Entertainments LLC)

When the film career of Robin Williams is in question, there are two bodies of work to be discussed: His comedy (stand-up, Mrs. Doubtfire, Good Morning Vietnam, etc.) and his serious roles (Good Will Hunting, Dead Poets Society, One Hour Photo, etc.). However, there is one film that seems to slip under the radar a bit (I had never heard of it until a friend "dug it up"), and that is a shame...as "Awakenings" is a movie that will touch your spirit.The basic plot of the film (based on the true story of the life experiences of Dr. Oliver Sacks) sees Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Williams) assigned to the neurotic ward of a mental institution, where he quickly becomes fascinated with encephalitis patients, who are literally frozen in stature and have been that way for decades. All but given up on by clinical & clerical hospital staff, Sayer instead pushes the envelope with a radical new drug therapy program that allows him to revive nearly all of the catatonic patients. One of the "awakened" in particular, named Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), begins to actually live a normal life, only to see that existence thrown into doubt once again when the long-term effects of the drug treatment begin to take hold.In terms of plot, this one will really suck you in and have you rooting for the protagonists all the way through. Director Penny Marshall does a remarkable job of creating characters that you will truly feel for, and thus any setback is a huge emotional blow. For the more "emotionally inclined" viewers, certain moments will have you cheering out loud, while others will leave you completely devastated.The acting in "Awakenings" is also top-notch, as Williams plays the mousy (yet fantastically drive) Dr. Sayer with aplomb, while De Niro turns in a performance unlike any previous or since as the awakened patient who must learn to live in a world that has passed him by for so many years. The auxiliary "nuthouse" cast (think "One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest") also provide more humor and sincerity to the proceedings.Thus, if you have stumbled across this movie while perusing a film index or trolling through IMDb, don't let the anonymity fool you, as it is well worth your time.

A very very slow movie based on a true story, which is remembered particularly for the outstanding performance of Robert de Niro. How on earth did he not win the 1990/91 Oscar hands down after his portrayal of Leonard Lowe? Every time I watch this movie I have tears in my eyes from the scene where he tells the girl he loves he can't see her again, and watches her leaving from the window until the end. Robin Williams is...well, you know what you're gonna get from Robin Williams - for me the best actor of all time (DeNiro is second, in my opinion the two best actors star in 'Awakenings'.) Robin Williams plays a brilliant, yet incredibly shy and nervous doctor who joins a Psychiatric Hospital in New York where many of the patients are in a coma and dead to the World. Thanks to Dr. Sayer brilliance, a number of the patients including DeNiro 'awaken' from their state - some after decades - for a brief period in the summer of '69. There's a sad scene at the end where Dr. Sachs tells his nurse how Leonard had told him what a kind man he was...only for him to effectively give someone their life back, then take it away again and not be able to do anything about it. That's a sad scene played brilliantly by Robin Williams. Incidentally, the leading female is Julie Kavner who plays Nurse Eleanor Costello - she is world famous for the voice of Marge in The Simpsons!