Where do you suppose she lives?

Rating: Null/10 (27 May 2003)

SPOILER WARNING!! Is "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" the greatest film of all time? Perhaps not, but it is certainly one of the greatest. And, in both Jack's and Louise's performances, it contains some of the finest screen acting you will ever, EVER, see. Maybe you prefer to watch computer-generated dolts hitting each other in slow-motion. I wish you all the luck in the world. Meanwhile, Jack is arriving at the mental institution, in the cold and gloom. That weird music is playing. The Chief, Nurse Ratched, Danny Devito, Chris Lloyd, Brad Dourif and all the rest of the guys are waiting for him to turn their lives upside down. Here he comes now, with his cap, his leather jacket (notice how the colour scheme of his clothes slowly changes throughout the film until he's clad in all-white, just like the rest of them), his crazy grin, his rapid-fire chatter, his profanity, his spirit. The sad-sack inmates need him and fear him in roughly equal measure. Their world is ordered and petty and routine, dominated by the terrifying Nurse (Louise Fletcher - what an astonishingly controlled performance she gives). MacMurphy is the last thing they need. Playing basketball and going fishing ("Dr. Scanlon - the famous Dr. Scanlon") and watching the ball game (or not) and drinking and - hell - living, are not on the agenda. The authorities cannot control someone like Mac ("I fight and **** too much"), they cannot even understand him. Think of those great scenes in which men in suits ask him sensible questions and he responds by displaying a pornographic playing card and asking, "where do you suppose she lives?". Think also of how awesomely easy it is to escape, and how he never manages it. Why? Why doesn't he go out the window that night? Why doesn't he just disappear when they go for the fishing trip? These are the questions that keep you awake at night. "One flew over the cuckoo's nest" lingers long in the mind. Its haunting imagery, brilliant dialogue and wonderful ending remind you of the true power of the movies.