Awakenings Movie Critique

CUASAY, JALEEL ANJELO, L. BSPT/ PT1-1 Ms. Peggy Anne W. Orbe, MAEd
Movie Critique of “The Awakenings”
The writer: Oliver Sacks (book), Steven Zaillian (screen play)
The Director: Penny Marshall
The Year the movie was shown: 1990

The movie "Awakenings" tells the true story of Oliver Sacks. What both the movie and the book convey is the immense courage of the patients and the profound experience of their doctors, as in a small way they re-experienced what it means to be born, to open your eyes and discover to your astonishment that "you" are alive. I cannot deny how this film moved me. I consider this as a work of love pertaining to the emotional situation of the patients who are suffering from post-encephalitis.

Sayer) and Robert De Niro (Leonard Lowe) really portrayed their roles exceptionally. Robin Williams really set a mood through his role as a professional doctor that unlike others, with immense kindness, devotion and compassion to others. He demonstrated convincingly that he is an actor and not just a comedian. Williams is perhaps a bit too nerdy at first, but he captures perfectly all the hope, fear, exhilaration, and anguish that a doctor in that situation must be. Dr. Sayer as a nerd with a closeted ego, and though the character is too saintly for comfort, Williams does some of his most convincing screen work. For once, his addled, remote-control mind doesn 't seem inappropriate to the character he 's playing. That mind is what makes Sayer both a nervous wreck and a great scientist. Polite, even harmless, on the outside, he 's never at rest internally. Robert De Niro acting was really believable from being paralyzed and ticks of his body to recovery. His genuine smile and outlook about life made the audience emphatize to his situation. He deftly handles all the emotional and physical challenges of his role. His most emotionally eloquent playing inarticulate characters, and though his performance as Leonard starts out a little too cute, it grows more daring as the movie progresses. One of the central weaknesses of Awakenings is that it fails to dramatize the fact that Leonard, unlike some of the other

The film made a sense of love for the viewers which I really liked about. The emotional scene in which he wades out into the sea to the tune of a rock and roll song is an example of his being alive and well. Also, the scene where the mother of Leonard lullabies him to sleep and as that happens, it presented the clips of Leonard after awakening where he recieved pure happiness because he can now perform the Activities of daily living and can live his life. I also liked the part where the coworkers of Dr. Sayer donated for the cure of the disease. They exhibited that even though how high is the price for the drug, as long as it is for the betterment of the lives of their patients, it is okay. I felt the compassion in them and the hope to change their mentality about that the ward of their patients is like a garden, they just need feed them like watering