Louise Fletcher
William Redfield
Brad Dourif
Danny DeVito
A tragedy drama that
makes you look forward to what Jack is going to do next.
I remember the feeling
I had the first time I watched this movie over 10 years ago. The feeling was
mutual watching it again in 2012.
The movie is based on
the 1962 novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ken Kesey, and it was shot at
Oregon State Hospital in Salem, Oregon, which was also the setting of the
novel.
Director Miloš Forman
made sure you feel a sort of attachment with the characters, so you share their
feelings of joy, sadness, remorse, and loss at various points in the movie.
The movie is blessed
with some nice classic actors like Jack Nicholson, Brad Dourif, Christopher
Lloyd, and Danny DeVito, just to mention a few.
It focuses on the
free-spirited Randle P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson), who is sent for evaluation
at a mental hospital.
Upon getting there,
Randle had the idea that he was just doing time, not knowing he was there until
the doctors said he could leave.
He made friends with some of the patients in the institution, like mama's boy Billy (Brad Dourif) and the silent Native American Bromden (Will Sampson), who everyone thought was deaf and dumb and whom he called Chief.
The psych ward is handled by Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher), who is more or less the antagonist in this flick.
McMurphy was an instigator of unruly behaviour, from breaking himself and the other patients out of the hospital for a boat trip to throwing a night party at the hospital, which led to a tragedy.
The movie did have a message: live free, be happy, don’t allow yourself to be tied down by anyone or anything, or let either stand in the way of your happiness.
Now the issues with the movie is how simplistic it came off as, in comparison to the book which was complex and told from the perspective of Chief Bromden. Another major issue is how the movie portrays mental illness, the movie's portrayal of mental illness is misleading, as it makes them look simple issues. And the film uses these mentally ill patients as a comedic caricature backdrop for McMurphy's rebellion, which is not something I will clap for.
Two of Miloš Forman’s films, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) and Amadeus (1984), both gained him an Academy Award for Best Director.
The movie was the second to win all five major Academy Awards: Best Picture, Best Actor in a Lead Role, Best Actress in a Lead Role, Best Director, and Best Screenplay — an accomplishment not repeated until 1991 by The Silence of the Lambs.
Well, if you haven’t had a dose of this movie, then you need to.
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