I LOVED the book. The movie, not so much. Which is really disappointing since considering it's not that difficult of a story line to portray alongside the book. Jack Nicholson and Louise Fletcher did a great job in their roles but that is pretty much it.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest received a 6/10 stars due to the combination of the plot and the acting in this classic movie. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's nest was directed by Milos Forman, and the story was written by Ken Kesey. The plot was very iffy from the beginning due to key events in the story missing such as: Chief didn't have any role compared to his role in the book, Cheswick did not drown himself, and the Doctor not going fishing with the patients. Lastly it felt like the only thing going well for the movie would be the perfect acting of the characters, they literally made this movie good. Other than that the director missed many opportunities to make this movie astounding with his acting crew, but choked with the plot of the story.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a serious toned movie, with some mildly disturbing themes, but also has its moments of light hearted humour. The movie is of course based on the book, but without spoiling anything, I can say that they have multiple differences and many small things are left out or not properly explained. Without reading the book first, understanding some of the characters and the ending may be difficult or just confusing. OFOTCN is a solid movie with excellent acting, Jack Nicholson is always a plus, but is lacking in production value and a clear direction. It isn't clear what everyone's intentions are until towards the end of the film we get an idea of what just some of the characters want. The music isn't memorable and the movie's visuals having nothing especially different or specifically appealing about them. Another minor complaint is that the nurse never truly felt evil in the movie as she did in the book. In the movie, she seems to be a woman just doing her job rather than a control freak constantly abusing her powers. The hospital is an evil place as in the book, but it never truly feels evil like in the book. Chief explains things in the book through his own mind that allows us to see the hospitals "true colors" and understand just how evil it is. Without Chief's narration in the movie or any other visual symbolism, the hospital is just... a hospital. The viewer sees what it is from the outside and you can see how the inmates live, but seeing the hospital through their eyes at any point would've made for a much more interesting and in depth experience. When reading the book, I thought of the asylum as like the prison from Shawshank Redemption, which is an excellent film sharing many of the same themes. A truly evil place with a twisted leader, but the movie just doesn't deliver what the book constructed so well.

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (OFOCN) is a movie that was released in 1975; it is based off a book bearing the same name by Ken Kesey and directed by Milos Forman. I would just like to quickly note that I read the book; had I not read the book, I may have thought that "OFOCN" was a good movie, despite the recurrent plot choppiness, but since I read the book, I believe that it is only an okay movie. The movie does not follow the book very well. The main idea of the plot was still there, but there are things that were important in the book, but left out in the movie. The character interpretation left something to be desired. Sure there were good actors- Jack Nicholson, Louise Fletcher, Danny DeVito, and Christopher Lloyd- which made the movie better, but the personalities of their characters, especially those of Nicholson and Fletcher, were completely different and altered the plot a little. Another thing that was not close to being accurate was that the entire book was narrated from the main character, Chief Bromden's, point of view, complete with his hallucinations. In the movie, McMurphy is the main character, and Chief isn't even seen for most of the movie. I feel that the director could have done a better job with that; they could have used a voice over, so that chief could still narrate things from his point of view. Also, many of the important events that happened in the book, did not happen in the movie or they switched the characters that were in the events. The book was written to show how people with mental illness live and how they were treated at the time, which was shown in a deep way through the character personalities, the way they interacted, Chief's narration, and the events that happen in the book. Since the movie changed a lot of these things, I believe that the story lost its depth and its underlying meaning; it just became a movie about a sane guy disrupts a bunch of "crazy people". Lastly, the movie jumps around a lot; they leave out some details that leaves you wondering, "What caused this to be happening now?" Overall, I recommend that you either read the book or watch the movie, not both, though I would recommend the book over the movie any day. The movie itself has good actors and a fairly strong plot line, but does not follow the book it is based off of very well. All in all, I would give OFOCN a 5 out of 10.