Sanity is a matter of perception.

Rating: 10/10 (5 March 2012)

One of the universal characteristics about works of fiction is the audiences ability to relate to the characters. It is the common traits that we share with them that brings them to life. We can easily identify with a characters triumphs, their intentions, their failures and their frustrations. Many of these traits are easy to identify. They are either black or white, good or bad. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest goes into more of a gray area, giving us one of the all time great unanswered questions- What is crazy? When the film begins we are introduced to the hospital, set in 1963. The ward is run by Nurse Ratched (Lousie Fletcher), a woman with a sweet yet stern and cold face. When we are introduced to the patients we as the audience automatically assume we are crazy. Some of the patients outright exhibit deranged behavior. Others seem eccentric and a few seem downright "normal" but we assume they are there for a reason.
We are then introduced to the films main character, RP McMurphy (Jack Nicholson). Despite his claims that he is crazy, it is made clear to the audience that McMurphy is not crazy but attempting to avoid jail time for criminal behavior. Nicholson's portrayal of McMurphy is nothing short of masterful with his over the top explosiveness and outbursts to his subtle reactions of his observation of the hospital.
McMurphy's persona at once makes him a hero to the inmates and an enemy to Nurse Ratched. Almost instantly a war has begun between McMurphy and Nurse Ratched and neither side will back down. Fletcher's portrayal of Nurse Ratched is the personification of order. The sweetness that she portrays is phony and unsettling. The coldness and cruelness laying just below her surface becomes more and more apparent as we can see that she will go to any length to have control and show no mercy.
We also get to know the characters better it is revealed that many of them are not insane at all but rather socially inept and loners. The revelation to McMurphy that these inmates are there voluntarily is almost an unbearable shock. These men are not there because they are evil or dangerous. They are there because they can not function within our society.
McMurphy leaves his impression on all of the inmates, but the one he reaches through the most to is a gigantic mute Native American character simply referred to as the Chief. The Chief silently observes all activity in the ward while showing no emotion. It is his interaction with McMurphy that brings him to life and brings him to start speaking again.
The heart of this film is not about mental illness. Despite taking place in a mental ward and there being mentally ill characters in the background, this is a film about human spirit. Spirit is what McMurphy has in abundance, what the inmates in his circle are critically lacking and what Nurse Ratched and the institution labels as insanity.
And yet the war inevitably comes to its conclusion. SPOILER ALERT- Nurse Ratched's determination to have control and complete lack of mercy takes its toll on one of the most innocent inmates and drives him to take his life. The tragedy of his death unleashes the pent up rage that has built up in McMurphy and he unleashes it on full force on Nurse Ratched.
The end result is a tragedy. The hospital lobotomizes McMurphy. He is now a vegetable and will be for the rest of his life. The Chief is horrified when he discovers his beloved friends fate and immediately smothers him with a pillow, doing him the favor of a quick death instead of spending the rest of his life immobile.
Earlier in the film McMurphy had tried to lift a heavy marble water fountain out of the ground. When he failed he was mocked and he replied to the rest of them that at least he tried. Upon Mcmurphy's death the Chief does what had been laughed at as impossible- he rips the water fountain out of the ground and throws it through the window. The closing shot is of the Chief running away from the hospital....free from the hospital and free in his soul. He no longer needs the hospital. He was won the war that McMurphy started.