BEFORE: Hey, maybe this is just what I need around here to lighten the mood - the story of a fun-loving doctor who doesn't play by the rules. We all liked "M*A*S*H", right?
THE PLOT: In the 1970s, a medical student treats patients, illegally, using humor.
AFTER: This film's got it all - terminally ill patients, including children, the horrors of medical school, loneliness, depression, but wait, there's more. The film opens with Hunter "Patch" Adams checking himself into a mental institution. Why? Because he tried to commit suicide. Of course. For extra misery, there are a number of scenes here where Robin Williams interacts with also-deceased actor Philip Seymour Hoffman. Good luck enjoying those now. (Jeez, even the old lady that rapped in "The Wedding Singer" is in here, and she passed away last week.)
Maybe I've got this whole Robin Williams thing backwards - forget the "tears of a clown" thing, maybe he just portrayed too many of these complex, depressed characters and that somehow rubbed off on him. Perhaps he got too much into the headspace of characters that were suicidal, and there was no going back. Or maybe Patch Adams is a symbolic insight - Adams became a doctor to help people as a way of trying to forget about his own problems. In the same way, maybe Robin Williams came alive on stage and that was his escape, and it was just the reality of his down time that he couldn't handle.
To raise Patch Adams up, the film has to downplay the entire medical profession, except for him. To create a system that he can buck up against, there's a blatant implication that he somehow invented caring, or that every single doctor in the history of medicine somehow forgot to ask every patient what their names were. There's a reason why you hire the guy who played the warden in "The Shawshank Redemption" to play the head of the medical school, and that's to imply that he's running the place the exact same way. But this could be a fabrication, another manipulation, because that doctor's not given a chance to defend himself, I don't get to hear his side of things.
There's plenty more manipulation here, like championing nurses over doctors - I'm not saying their work isn't great, but why can't they both be recognized here? Also, Patch Adams' style of comedy is always a hit with the sick kids, even though Robin Williams' brand of scattershot references should often be way over their heads. The use of sick kids alone is enough to make this film even more heavy-handed than the holocaust film was. Just about the only film that I've seen that was more manipulative was "What Dreams May Come", which also starred Robin Williams as a doctor, which had the nerve to say, "No, heaven doesn't work THAT way, it works THIS way, because we need that to make our story work." Give me a break.
If you read up on the story of the real Patch Adams, you'll see just how far the manipulation goes - note that at the end of the credits, there's a card which admits that events were fictionalized and some characters from Adams' life were combined, and it's the way in which this was done that seems really egregious.
It's not really true that "laughter is the best medicine." MEDICINE is the best medicine, but you can say that laughter is important, too. Try them both, but please try medicine first, unless there are side-effects like suicidal thoughts or the condition known as hot dog fingers.
Next Thursday is Red Nose Day - OK, I admit I thought it was THIS Thursday, and I was wrong. I also thought this charity event had something to do with Patch Adams, and I was wrong about that too. But it is an event organized by Comic Relief, which is a cause that Robin Williams supported. (Jeez, Robin, why didn't the charity work that you did help keep you going just a bit longer?) At first I was against giving out a plug, but then I thought, "Why not?" I've got a forum here that reaches literally tens of people, and if I can do a good turn I probably should. So, since I've been pretty hard on Robin Williams this week, I'm planning to send in a check - like how if I have a fantastic meal I sometimes send in a check to City Harvest to not feel as guilty about it.
Also starring Daniel London (last seen in "It's Kind of a Funny Story"), Monica Potter (last seen in "Con Air"), Philip Seymour Hoffman (last seen in "When a Man Loves a Woman"), Bob Gunton (last seen in "Argo"), Josef Sommer, Irma P. Hall (last seen in "The Ladykillers"), Peter Coyote (last seen in "Random Hearts"), Michael Jeter (also carrying over from "Jakob the Liar"), Harold Gould (last seen in "Marnie"), Harve Presnell, with cameos from Alan Tudyk (last heard in "Frozen"), Ellen Albertini Dow, Dot-Marie Jones.
RATING: 5 out of 10 balloon animals
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