Groundbreaking film with flaws.

Rating: 7/10 (8 August 2019)

The 1970's brought us films and books that showed us how an already competent system could also be cruel and inhumane. Due to following policy on Mental Health programs in the US, lawmakers with naïve hope thought everything would remain normal, but more pleasant and humane. The result is that matters have become much more dreadful and have brought more misery to everyone.
Cuckoo's Nest, based on the acclaimed novel by Ken Kesey, is not a movie about Mental illness. It is a movie about oppression, power struggle and abuse. It by no means tries to address the state of affairs with those afflicted with mental illness, but rather serves as an indictment against Mental Institutions. Herein lies the many problems people have with this supposed cinematic masterpiece. I have read some critics reviews who are experienced people in the Mental health profession. They didn't feel the characters were authentic or believable to the patients they have worked with in their respective jobs. I believe that. It's also insulting, as one person noted, that to think that all these patients need is a field trip with some booze and hookers to guide them on the path to sanity and freedom. That's a very immature viewpoint that this movie assumes.
Jack Nicholson, along with the rest of the cast give energetic and bravura performances, but the film's point really jars with my sensibilities on a few levels. Nurse Ratched, the supposed heartless villain, is really just a firm, no-nonsense woman who's trying to do her job under stressful circumstances. If anyone has ever worked in the mental health profession, they will attest that this film's viewpoint is disingenuous and inaccurate. Mentally unstable patients are often deceptive and violent people causing harm to themselves and others. This movie presents them as passive and gentle souls who are being wrongfully abused.
If you're an anti-establishment person, this is the movie for you. If you're more moderate and reasonable in how you balance justice and humanity you will be bitterly disappointed. Most uninspiring is how it never explores mental illness and how it impacts the people who are affected by it. It just shows these mentally deranged/incapable people as zoo animals that you gawk at out of curiosity, or even worse, for laughs. That I found to be disappointing from a movie that needs to reassess its values. So we don't really get any insight on the complexities of mental illness. The central theme is one of a power struggle between our main protagonists, McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) and Nurse Ratched) Louise Fletcher.