Awakenings

This is a film with Robin Williams as Dr. Malcolm Sayer, and Leonard Lowe (Robert DeNiro) a thirty-something male who has lived his life since age 11 as a catatonic patient in a chronic hospital. The only person left in his life is his aging mother, who visits him everyday to comb his hair, put him to bed, read to him.

Dr. Sayer, with a background in botanical research is hired out of desperation by the hospital to deal with the chronic psychological patients. Being used to being alone, and mostly removed from humans in his personal life, Sayer finds himself connecting "atypical" symptoms among the most removed patients. After relating the disease to Parkinson's, he finds a drug that helps pull each individual out of their numbed minds and back into the world of the living.

Dr. Sayer: You'd think at a certain point all these atypical somethings would amount to a typical something.

There are several fascinating occurrences throughout the movie of the will and drive to help humankind. After he finds the medicine a cure to Leonard (DeNiro), he asks donors of the hospital to help fund the costs of the cure to the other handful of patients to the tune of $12,000 a month. Eventually, each of these patients are brought back to life where they can walk and shower by themselves. The viewer watches each of the patients remember who they were and who they are in a world they no longer recognize.

Lucy: "I can't imagine being older than 22. I've no experience at it. I know it's not 1926. I just need it to be."

Anthony: [cheerfully] How's it going?
Frank: How's it going?
Anthony: Yeah, how do you feel?
Frank: Well, my parents are dead. My wife is in an institution. My son has disappeared out west somewhere.
[pause]
Frank: I feel old and I feel swindled, that's how I feel.

Margaret: Miriam, there's no easy way to tell you this, so - your husband - he was granted a divorce from you in 1952.
Miriam: Oh, thank God!

At the climax of Leonard's recovery, he calls the doctor in the middle of the night, pleading that he needs to talk to him. Sayer rushes to the hospital to find a clear headed, exhilarated Leonard.

To paraphrase, he communicates to Sayer that people are missing the point to life- taking for granted the simpliest things, like human touch. He's baffled by the lackluster approach to life he's seeing people adopt, just to get through the day. He notices this is the failing of humans, and he dedicates his illness and his life to making people understand.

Of course not everything is what it seems. Before long, the medicine begins to wear off, and Leonard continues to fight for his freedom of life, loosing in the end.

Dr. Sayer: His gaze is from the passing of bars so exhausted, that it doesn't hold a thing anymore. For him, it's as if there were thousands of bars and behind the thousands of bars no world. The sure stride of lithe, powerful steps, that around the smallest of circles turns, is like a dance of pure energy about a center, in which a great will stands numbed. Only occasionally, without a sound, do the covers of the eyes slide open-. An image rushes in, goes through the tensed silence of the frame- only to vanish, forever, in the heart.

The story takes you through an emotional rollercoaster of sadness, humor, triumph, perseverance and determination, and leaves you fulfilled and inspired about life.

Dr. Sayer: What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and THAT is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. THESE are the things that matter. This is what we'd forgotten - the simplest thing.

Among the hard work, determination, insecurities, passion, deliverance, and success lies the strings that keep us connected to each other and to this life. It's here in the thread where we find the inspiration to keep going, keep trying. As healthy, active, thinking men and women, we have the capacity to grab ahold of this life (or metaphorically let go) and say WHOO HOO!

Life is good.