Line #52 Film/Awakenings


1	[[quoteright:315:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/awakenings_1990.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:315:Just being awake can be a miracle.]]
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4	->''"Hello. My name is Leonard Lowe. It has been explained to me that I've been away for quite some time. I'm back."''
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6	''Awakenings'' is a 1990 drama film [[BasedOnATrueStory based on Oliver Sacks' memoir of the same name]]. It tells the true story of a doctor (Sacks, who is fictionalized as Malcolm Sayer, played by Creator/RobinWilliams) who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa. He applies it on catatonic patients who survived the 1917–1928 epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Leonard Lowe (Creator/RobertDeNiro) and the rest of the patients are awakened after decades of catatonic state and have to deal with a new life in a new time.
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8	Directed by Creator/PennyMarshall and with a screenplay adaptation by Creator/StevenZaillian, the film co-stars Creator/JohnHeard, Creator/JulieKavner, Creator/PenelopeAnnMiller, and Creator/MaxVonSydow. Jazz legend Dexter Gordon (who died before the film's release) appears as a patient, while a then-unknown Creator/VinDiesel plays a hospital orderly.
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10	Sacks's book was also used by Creator/HaroldPinter as the basis of his 1982 one-act play ''A Kind of Alaska''.
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12	A documentary of the same name, featuring interviews with Dr. Sacks and his real-life patients, was produced in the UK by Yorkshire Television in 1974.
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14	----
15	!!This movie contains examples of:
16	* AdaptationalSexuality: In the film, Dr. Sayer (the AuthorAvatar for Oliver Sacks) has a romantic interest in his nurse, Eleanor. In reality, Sacks was homosexual, albeit one who was mostly celibate for most of his life.
17	* AndIMustScream:
18	** There is one exchange that expounds upon the true horror of the catatonic situation:
19	--->'''Dr. Ingham:''' Most died during the acute stage of the illness, during a sleep so deep they couldn't be roused. A sleep that in most cases lasted several months. Those who survived, who awoke, seemed fine, as though nothing had happened. Years went by -- five, ten, fifteen -- before anyone suspected they were not well...they were not. I began to see them in the early 1930s -- old people brought in by their children, young people brought in by their parents -- all of them complaining they weren't themselves anymore. They'd grown distant, aloof, anti-social, they daydreamed at the dinner table. I referred them to psychiatrists. Before long they were being referred back to me. They could no longer dress themselves or feed themselves. They could no longer speak in most cases. Families went mad. People who were normal were now elsewhere.\
20	'''Dr. Sayer:''' What must it be like to be them? What are they thinking?\
21	'''Dr. Ingham:''' They're not. The virus didn't spare the higher faculties.\
22	'''Dr. Sayer:''' We know that for a fact?\
23	'''Dr. Ingham:''' Yes.\
24	'''Dr. Sayer:''' Because?\
25	'''Dr. Ingham:''' [[FridgeHorror Because the alternative would be unthinkable.]]
26	** Leonard Lowe actually manages to convey his being trapped by directing Dr. Sayer to the poem ''[[http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-panther/ The Panther]]'':
27	--->His vision, from the constantly passing bars,\
28	has grown so weary that it cannot hold\
29	anything else. It seems to him there are\
30	a thousand bars; and behind the bars, no world.\
31	As he paces in cramped circles, over and over,\
32	the movement of his powerful soft strides\
33	is like a ritual dance around a center\
34	in which a mighty will stands paralyzed.\
35	Only at times, the curtain of the pupils\
36	lifts, quietly—. An image enters in,\
37	rushes down through the tensed, arrested muscles,\
38	plunges into the heart and is gone.
39	* BasedOnATrueStory: The movie is based on the book of the same name written by Oliver Sacks, the real Malcom Sayer. The characters were all real people Dr. Sacks tried L-Dopa with, with results varying from very successful to complete disasters.[[note]] It should be noted that the movie ''does'' oversentamentalise a bit. Most patients were conscious and could talk, they just showed a complete lack of interest in the world and of course their Parkinsonian symptoms. Likewise, some patients continued to thrive on L-Dopa even as the movie showed the majority reverted to their Pre-Dopa states.[[/note]]
40	* BittersweetEnding: Sort of. [[spoiler:It borders on DownerEnding, as everybody given the drug eventually reverts back to their catatonic state no matter how much the dosage is increased. However, the breakthroughs made led to the patients being treated more humanely afterwards. Also, Malcolm finally asks Eleanor out, supposedly starting a relationship.]]
41	** Also in RealLife. [[spoiler:Sacks even got fired. But these people were able to enjoy their lives, and Sacks continued his success into the modern day.]]
42	* BrickJoke: Early in the movie Dr. Sayers is interviewing a seemingly normal woman. Then he takes out a pen and she starts screaming hysterically. Later he and the chemist walk out of a room and see her. Before she can look up they quickly put their hands over their breast pockets to hide their pens.
43	* CloudCuckooLander: One of the patients, even though he's cured, still is TheVoiceless and grooves to music no one else can hear.
44	* FishOutOfTemporalWater: When taken out after being revived, the catatonics are pleasantly surprised to find that Prohibition ended a long time ago, but less pleasantly surprised by how old they are now. In fact, many of them behave as if they're still living not just in [[TheRoaringTwenties the '20s]] but in ''their'' 20s, or even younger.
45	%%* FlowersForAlgernonSyndrome
46	* TheFutureIsShocking: Several of the awakened patients have difficulties adjusting to a world that's very different from the one they knew.
47	* HeroOfAnotherStory: Lucy’s sister had taken care of her for around forty years! It’s only after she passes away that Lucy has to be hospitalized.
48	* HideYourGays: The real Dr. Sacks was gay.
49	* HollywoodOld: Robert De Niro was 46 playing 59 year old Leonard. Justified as he hasn’t had a stressful life.
50	* JerkassHasAPoint: Frank is a tragic example. Frank is invariably a grouchy wet blanket in contrast to the joy of the other patients (and staff) at the hospital, and points out quite correctly that he has little to be grateful for despite being temporarily restored to near-normalcy. He's lost several decades of his life, his family and friends are gone, and he has nothing much left to live for.
51	* NotThatKindOfDoctor: The film begins with Sayer showing up for a job interview, not realizing they're looking for someone to take care of patients; he's a researcher, not a clinician. He takes the job anyway.
52	* PrecisionFStrike: “It’s a fucking miracle!”
53	* PyrrhicVictory: Even though the patients have been [[spoiler:temporarily]] brought out of their catatonia, one of them is clearly upset about all the time he has lost.
54	--> '''Anthony''': ''(cheerfully)'' How's it going?\
55	'''Frank''': How's it going?\
56	'''Anthony''': Yeah, how do you feel?\
57	'''Frank''': Well, my parents are dead. My wife is in an institution. My son has disappeared out west somewhere. ''({{beat}})''\
58	I feel old and I feel swindled, that's how I feel.
59	* RestorationOfSanity: The film centers around a group of catatonia patients being cured of their condition after being injected with a drug. [[spoiler:Unfortunately, the drug eventually wears off after a while and they all fall back into their previous states.]]
60	* SpottingTheThread: Dr. Sayers notices that Lucy seems to notice that her glasses are off. He then notices lots of other details about the patients everyone thinks are catatonic. He then asks the nurses and staff to try various things to see how they react. Slowly they all discover various patterns that clearly suggest that they’re not as out of it as what at first seems.
61	* SymbolicDistance: The poster seen above utilises this, showing Leonard L. out on the sea standing on a precipice, acting as a small island, as Dr. Sayer looks back on another piece of land extending off-screen. It serves to show how Leonard has become separated from the present world due to his Encephalitis Lethargica rendering him essentially dead for 30 years. Even on L-Dopa, he will never be able to become a functioning member of society.
62	* WhamLine: When Dr. Sayers points out that the other patients aren’t regressing the same way Leonard is, Dr. Kaufman points out cryptically that Leonard started the treatment sooner. While the extremely logically thinking Dr. Sayers almost certainly knows this, just hearing it is very sobering since he knows what awaits the other patients.

Context Film / Awakenings