Charly is an extremely kind, caring but mentally disabled man, living in a rigid society of the late 60's when little was known about mental disabilities, and anyone suffering from autism, Asperger's, Down's, etc. was stuck with the label "retarded." Charly undergoes an experimental treatment that changes his mind to that of a genius, but similar to the adverse effects on experimental subjects in 'A Clockwork Orange' and 'Firestarter', his genius mind has effects which are unwanted, on both Charly and the mouse, Algernon, that the treatment was tested on. Charly proves, through experiencing proper education, social interaction, love and imagination, things people had kept from him in the past, that he isn't just another statistic, he isn't just an experiment, he's a person, and messing with a person's mind, no matter the reason, can always have a chance of danger.I read 'Flowers for Algernon' in school, but because of the outdated view on mental retardation at the time this film was made, they refused to show it in class, which I can honestly understand. Autism has been in my family a while now and it's a difficult thing for people, especially young adults, to accept. I bought the film myself and watched it, and was very shocked at how close to the book and how sad it was. It was produced around the 'Summer of Love' and along with The Baby (1973), was the first film, although by today's standards both are highly outdated, to break the silence on the subject of mental disabilities. This led the way for various other films such as The Secret (1992), Dark Night of the Scarecrow (1981) and Phoebe in Wonderland (2008), movies that point out that people with trouble learning and doing certain things are not idiots, they just have a unique way of thinking and seeing the world.The soundtrack was an eerie melody of 60's-style hippie type music, melancholy at some points and cheerful at others. The acting, especially from Charly's character, was amazing, especially when considering the actor played both the part of a genius, and who society called a "retard", it's a huge contrast and I imagine quite a role reversal to portray.Charly (also known as Flowers for Algernon), is a powerful and thought-provoking film that may change the way all of us view life, the way we all view and judge people, based on anything different, and maybe we should all think twice about what we see as "normal".

A mentally challenged man named Charly (Cliff Robertson) desires to become smarter so that he wouldn't always be picked on by his so-called friends at his workplace. However, he has made no progress despite his efforts of going to school. One day he gets a chance to undergo some experimental brain surgery and his intelligence skyrockets, making him a genius. Still, he cannot stop feeling like an outsider or find happiness with Alice, the woman he loves (Claire Bloom).The director uses many split screens and other alienating techniques to portray the fragile mental state of Charly; at points they get rather annoying and look dated. The montage near the end, depicting the progression of Charly and Alice's relationship, comes across as rather hasty, considering the scene directly preceding it. Mostly the story advances fine though, and the pondering about the surgery's effects on Charly's psyche is interesting – there should have been more of it, actually. Robertson's Oscar-winning performance in the lead role is decent, although I preferred his calm 'intelligent Charly' to his naïve 'challenged Charly'.

At the risk of revealing my approximate age, I will tell you that forty years ago I considered this movie to be excellent and was greatly impressed with the performances of Cliff Robertson and the beautiful Claire Bloom. Alas, time has gone by and after watching this movie again my opinion has changed. What I once considered to be a sensitive dramatization of the plight of the mentally challenged is today little more than typical simplistic Hollywood hokum. For this movie to be truly effective it has to has some connection to reality, and here the movie fails. This movie asks the audience to believe that a man, who according to the movie is a moron, is transformed into an idiot savant bordering on genius and then mysteriously regresses but while in the genius phase has a relationship with his psychologist who disregards every ethical and legal standard of her profession to act out her counter-transference fantasies. The question here is: who is more maladjusted? The hapless patient who is a victim of a weird experimental procedure, something that a Nazi scientist would have concocted and then goes awry, an experiment conducted apparently without the patient's informed consent, or his pathetic out-of-control psychologist who takes advantage of her patient for her own personal gratification? Also the performances themselves are unconvincing. Even in the "moron" phase Cliff Robertson does not seem mentally slow enough or disabled enough to warrant undergoing a radical experimental procedure and Claire Bloom's performance as the psychologist borders on the laughable. Her behavior is so erratic and irresponsible that I was waiting for the scene where someone calls the state licensing board to demand the revocation of her license. One of the lowest points of the movie is when Ms. Bloom's character asks, no begs, Charly to marry her after they find out that the operation has failed. It would have been better if Charly had said yes so that in the next scene the psychologist could be shown acting out her maternal fantasies with the now post-genius "moronic" Charly who is again babbling like a child but at least now has a surrogate mother to take care of him while they sleep in the same bed as husband and wife. Ugh!The purpose of a therapeutic relationship is to help the patient improve their functioning in society. The clinician is supposed to closely monitor the patient's progress toward achieving certain goals, utilizing the most effective and appropriate therapeutic techniques to achieve these goals - all for the benefit of the patient, not the therapist. However, in this movie the therapist's only goal is to have sex with the patient who has undergone a remarkable intellectual transformation but is still a patient. Ultimately the therapist's self-serving acting out hurts the confused and bewildered patient who is permitted, indeed encouraged to act out his sexual fantasies with his therapist. The movie provides a sensationalistic and completely unfair portrayal of mental health services.

CHARLY is an interesting movie to watch because its premise is the antithesis of the premise in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Where in Michael Gondry's movie, Carrey undergoes a traumatic experiment where he erases his mind to get rid of the memory of his great love, Cliff Robertson, playing Charly Gordon, a mentally disabled man who works in menial labor, gets a major life change: an experiment to elevate his mental activity. While you may not see the parallels in both movies, I could.Both processes are, essentially, brain damage. One of them causes terminal amnesia and even then it's not guaranteed because the two lovers -- Carrey and Winslet -- gravitate towards each other as if they were meeting for the first time. Charly's is a breakthrough: it opens the doors of not only his perception of the world and his placement in it, but to his heart because he is able to express his love for Alice Kinian, the woman who has been the link between him and the world of intelligence. The problem being that his newfound intelligence is temporary.CHARLY as a movie feels of its time and much of the visual exposition -- split scenes, bright colors, and inserts -- are purely late Sixties. There is even a psychedelic romp that Charly indulges in that seems to be a precursor to EASY RIDER at some point, and his walk in the woods with Alice all but evokes the folksy music of soft rock bands like Bread. However, the science fiction aspect of the story is able to transplant it to any other time frame despite the fashions and the overall look: it could happen today with the advance of science-fact. The one point where the movie falls short of being excellent is at the moment when Charly is told that he'll revert back to his former self. True, we're given glimpses here and there, but there is a much too abrupt ending that shows him back at a child's state, still dressed as a man, playing with children on a see-saw. I guess the people involved in the production thought it would have been too much for the movie-going public of 1968 to see Charly suffer the effects of his regression, leaving the movie with that one scene in which he tells Alice to leave him alone, followed by the closing playground scene.Even so, CHARLY is full of beautiful, understated acting. Cliff Robertson is detailed in his characters idiocy, not making Charly a one-note object of pity but a human being who is loved by his co-workers. He evolves into a man full of this frightening intelligence who becomes the thermometer of the way the world is heading, going so far as to denounce the state of the cold war and America's complacent society which echoes FAHRENHEIT 451 when he addresses that education comes from television. Claire Bloom has a role that could be thankless but isn't -- as Alice, she has a lovely, sensitive presence that complements Robertson's completely.