Lately, it has become my custom to see "recent" releases long after they first come out. There are many reasons for this. I don't like crowds, I don't like off screen noise (from crowds) when I'm trying to enjoy what's on screen, and these days, I resent paying seven or eight dollars (or more?!) to see a flick. The practice of seeing movies on the big screen like this however, hasn't really affected my overall opinions; that is, the "hype" and/or critical praise, or downturned thumbs and critical blasting, haven't made a difference. I saw "Titanic" awhile after release and felt the praise it received well justified. The opposite was true for me personally with Spielberg's "Saving Private Ryan." Call me an iconoclast, but the opinions of others rarely affects me at all when it comes to movies.
With this in mind, the totally wacky bipolar reactions that "Patch Adams" had received by the time I got around to it (audiences loved it, critics trashed it), made me curious enough to cough up my $3.25 to see it at a bargain theater on a warm, sunny Saturday afternoon. I didn't expect much and entered the theater reluctantly. I was not really a Robin Williams fan (or wasn't until this, which has since made me go back and look at his other work with more favor), the subject matter didn't seem to interest me too greatly, and if this were really the "bomb" most of the critics were saying it was, I was about to waste two hours and the price of a happy meal. Several thoughts entered my mind as I sat down in my usual third row middle seat down front in the nearly deserted theater and the lights dimmed. I had read mostly negative reviews of this film, and yet, it had been a big moneymaker, audiences loved it, and it was nominated for a Golden Globe as best picture of the year. "Best Picture?!" How could a movie that was condemned so harshly by the critics, be all that bad if the movie goers themselves loved it? Something seemed strange about that, I thought, as the movie began…very strange.
Take note, all. The critics on this one are totally full of shit. This is a wonderful film!
I was swept away by this film, almost from the very beginning. The opening scene and voice-over narrative by Robin Williams set me up nicely with its very solemn and philosophical tone, and the visuals and music nicely countered that in a very enticing manner. For here we were introduced to a sad, depressed man on his way to the "nut house" after a failed suicide attempt, riding through some of the most beautiful, sunny countryside one can imagine. I wonder if the powerful, dialectic nature of this opening scene and narration, was actually the moment when the "critics" were already annoyed, but the audience (ahem, like real people, you know?), could immediately identify with William's character and plight? Despite the movie's frequent excursions into over the top silliness and improbable behavior by Williams and various other characters later on, the beginning is really the most manipulative part of the film (and I mean that in the most positive sense). Only now do I realize why so many reviewers hated this flick. One really has to understand Patch's whole state of mind at the start, to identify with him throughout and find the rest of the movie enjoyable, plausible and meaningful. In essence, even at our lowest moments in life, truly the "best medicine," like the movie's tag-line goes, is humor. It is my firm opinion after seeing this extraordinary film, that most of those who didn't like it, simply didn't "get" it, from the very beginning. Either that, or that piece of their hearts that can still revel in the glory and power of the simple pleasures in this great big mysterious "concept" we're all sharing called "life," is in cardiac arrest, and needs exactly the type of "medical care" Patch preaches after quickly learning during his brief stay at the psycho ward, is scarcely present in our modern day medical institutions.
Those institutions, as Patch strongly believes and within which the movie's whole concept relies on for its very real truths, are truly a daily, functioning contradiction. On the one hand, hospitals and doctors have as their guiding principle (or so they say), the noblest of goals. To treat people in need, to care for the sick and for those without the means to care for themselves, and to acknowledge that we are all basically just human beings living out our lives together in a "society" where the "Golden Rule" is actually the only one which matters. But who, if they've been run through the impersonal, HMO horror that is the state of today's "medical care," who, if they've ever spent any amount of time "in the hospital," would agree with the notion that "altruistic" and "loving" care is any part of the present day health care "system?" That system is a lie, a contradiction, and in many cases today, the whole concept of "medical care" is an oxymoron of the highest order.
"Patch Adams" is truly a "socialist" movie on this issue, dwelling gloriously and unashamedly from start to finish, in the concept of "socialized medicine," where people are truly put first and foremost in importance. I really think this film could not have been made during earlier times, notably during the 50's and the whole McCarthy witch-hunt/blacklist days. Sadly, if the medical "industry" continues on the track it has been, films like this and the ideas within, will be rarer still. Only but the most cold-hearted cynic about life and the sanctity of that, and those who consider the medical profession as just another "business," could deny that increasing the "personalizing" of the doctor-patient relationship, could do anything but positive things. Old habits and customs, old traditions and ways of thinking die hard however. Is the "philosophy" of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams really all that bizarre or unworkable? Or is it just a return, if only in spirit and intent, to the "good old days" when a doctor would actually get his butt over to your house and tend to your sick child because he gave a damn? Having read many other reviews of this film, it is my suspicion that those who denounced this film the strongest, simply find the politics of it something to be reacted against, instead of understood and embraced.
Those "critics" who have damned this film so roughly I think, are playing the most politically correct game possible these days, and that is that any ideas and ideals even remotely related to "socialist" thought or political persuasion, is by default, especially these days, quite un-chic. Why then, did this movie find such a wide audience and enjoy such basic, heartfelt "people" popularity? I've yet to meet one other "real" person out there who has seen the film and not loved it, but why the snotty, stuck-up reviews, which seem to me to not even be discussing the same movie? Can the answer also be found in politics, but ones of money? After all, anyone out there who is not wealthy, who cannot afford the finest medical care available today, who has seen firsthand that the last place to find true health in mind and spirit these days is the inside of a hospital or clinic, and who more often than not in real life has run into the same cold, inhuman "healers" (doctors) that this film shows fictionally, "gets" the movie's message loud and clear. Doesn't wealth in this country buy a different kind of health care? Could it be that the majority of "Hollywood" and industry "critics" have a standard of health care all of us "commoners" out there (who loved the film) only dream of? Perhaps.
What touched audiences besides these possible factors? Do all of us normal people (who can't afford Mayo for every sneeze or bout of heartburn) get the idea that there's something dreadfully wrong with the medical system we have today, and that it needs change, almost any change, and needs it now? Does the whole idea of experimentation, of at least trying to do things a better and more humane way, resonate deeply in the majority of us, who fall through the cracks when it comes to the medical "state of the art" these days? In an early part of the film, a psychiatrist who is supposed to be "helping" Patch and at the very least, "listening" to him, fiddles around with his coffee, avoids eye contact, and eventually doesn't even hear what Patch says. A bit later, Patch opts to dismiss himself from the institution, for the obvious reason that he's just not getting any true medical help there. The psychiatrist, ego puffed up, tells Patch that he disagrees with the early release, and that after all, "he" is the doctor. In a wonderful, fleeting, but subtly powerful moment, Patch replies, "Yeah, but you suck at it." Patch can, and does, do better.
The truth is, for all the pitfalls and possible impracticalities of some of Patch's "methods," almost anything would be better than the medical system we have today. In a broader sense, the dichotomy between the majority of critic's almost snobbish rejection of this movie and its general philosophy of life, and its popular acceptance, is a comment on these modern times themselves. The elite and the prosperous and the media tell us one thing, but most of us are not really as ignorant as all of that. As in the uptight and virtually fascist 50's, there are two realities we are all living in. Patch Adams was/is clearly ahead of his time, but so were Jesus, Ghandi, and Martin Luther King. The magical part of this movie to me is that for all the protestations of the fuddy-duddy uptight bureaucrats and status-hungry money-grubbers (doctors, deans, and medical students) Patch fights along the way, most of his "methods" are virtually cost-free, extremely effective and healing, and any real "reasons" for not giving them a try, are totally without substance.
Every now and then it seems to me, a movie like this comes along, which the critics roll over the hot coals, and the audience shakes their heads in remembering their fond enjoyment. The film reminded me of many of my favorite movies of the past along the general "theme" celebrating the wisdom and morality of the common, caring individual caught up in a crazy world, including "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next," "Forrest Gump," and "The Grapes of Wrath." Over the top and bordering on pretentious at times, "Patch Adams" is not without its flaws, but its heart is squarely in the right place, and so is the heart of the true-life man the movie is based upon. I recall (the late) Siskel and Ebert, who I admired for the most part and agreed with on most films, taking "Patch" to task bitterly, almost "over the top" in their own acrimonious criticism, and have found the same negative "spirit" in almost every other critic who has cursed this movie. An interesting phenomenon, this "over-reaction" I think. "Patch Adams" sneaked up on Hollywood I think, and sneaked up in the hearts of those who let its message in. Siskel and Ebert asked at one point in their scathing condemnation, something like "would you want a doctor to be tending to you like Patch Adams?" Speaking for myself, yes. Call me "old-fashioned," or just a bloody socialist agitator, but the whole concept of a doctor looking into your eyes once in awhile, seems strangely appealing.
Regardless of whether the most cynical among us want to reject the sentimental and unabashed sincerity of this film's message and spirit by attacking the messenger, "Patch Adams" obviously reached out past them, to the appreciative audience, the common folk who the real doctor Adams would be glad to sit and talk with, like any two human beings should. I think this movie should be required viewing at all of this country's medical schools, and if the students, like the critics, don't "get it," they should have to watch it again and again until they do. The "message" here is clear, even if some, including the Hollywood establishment itself who failed to include this as a best picture nominee (as glaring an omission as I've seen in years), still don't "get it." The people do. The "patients" out there do. As one of them, that's good enough for me.
In another early part of the film, one of the "patients" in the psychiatric hospital Patch meets, an aging, "crazy" but brilliant former mathematician, holds up four fingers, asking Patch "How many fingers do you see?" Patch answers four. The old man grumbles angrily, saying, "No, no, no, look beyond the fingers, tell me how many do you see?" Only a bit later, as Patch begins to realize that he has just as much healing power inside himself as anything or anyone outside of him, he repeats the same experiment with the old man, looks beyond the obvious, the man's four outstretched fingers, and sees "ghost" fingers right next to them. "I see eight fingers," Patch laughs. His heart is opening, he's beginning to truly "see." He "gets it." A trick of the eye. A trick of the heart. Simple but sublime. One of many such clear lessons in a film as deep and meaningful as one wishes to make it in their own heart. It helps a lot I think, to view "Patch Adams" with an open one. A tricky thing this day and age, as evidenced by the majority of critics out there, who hated a film the "people" loved. Like a doctor can always learn a thing or two from a patient (such a revolutionary idea, let's ban it!), maybe the critics ought to sit up and take notice of something they've obviously intentionally tried to forget in viewing and reviewing this great little film, the "audience is never wrong."
Finally, always second guessing even myself in my initial reactions to movies, especially those seen on the big screen, then later otherwise, I recently had the chance to see "Patch" again, this time on cable tv. Amazing, once again. I had only turned it on to watch the beginning again. I couldn't switch channels, and ended up watching the whole thing again, again, feeling all the same emotions. I laughed, I cried, I felt that wonderful tingle up my spine in so many parts. A great film…and the critics be damned.
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/ Before you buy.
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