Excellent performances complement a brilliant direction

Rating: 10/10 (23 April 2010)

The opening shot of the film is a bleak glance at an Oregon morning. The background score is haunting, stirring and graceful. A car is approaching towards what would be a mental hospital. It contains a dangerous man, R.P. McMurphy who has been sent to the mental hospital by the police. He had raped a 15 year old girl (I still can't believe how anybody could do that to a child. Come on people, be kind and civilized. Women aren't just objects to satisfy your needs. Don't be cruel animals.) and gotten into lots of fights at the prison, which thereby was concluded by the prison officials to send him into a mental hospital for clarification on whether he was really crazy or just pretending. He meets the head nurse Ratched (funny name) in the weekly routine therapeutic sessions with the other crazy people. She is controlling and everything proceeds as she wishes. He befriends the other people in the ward and they look up to him as their hero when he does everything he can to irritate Nurse Ratched. In due course of time, he even manages to be friends with the Chief Bromden (no, no. He's also a patient), who is a huge native American and apparently can't talk or hear. But, he confesses to McMurphy later in the movie that he is just pretending.
The performance of Jack Nicholson as McMurphy is really haunting. This film has won 5 major Oscars - Best Film, Director, Actor, Actress and Screenplay (adapted), only 2 others have managed that feat. Danny Devito's debut performance is heartwarming and the stammering boy, Billy Bibbit (Brad Dourif) gave such an outstanding performance that the climax will be remembered by everyone who has ever seen this movie. The professor in Back To The Future movies also does a good job here. Everybody in the film give awesome performances. But, I am still wondering, did Louise Fletcher really deserve that Oscar? I mean she played her role really well, but that is what all nurses do. They don't give free rein to the patients and take the hard decisions. The one scene I liked was when Billy commits suicide and both Ratched and McMurphy seem to be thinking that it is their fault for his death and McMurphy tries to strangle Ratched, which eventually leads to a procedure called Lobotomy to be done on McMurphy and he is brain-dead after that. In the beginning, I knew McMurphy was just pretending to be crazy. But, during his time in the hospital we can see the subtle changes in him. How could he allow his lover to sleep with someone else? (maybe she was a hooker, I don't know) And nobody seems to be commenting on Candy (Marya Small) who gave such a sweet portrayal of a woman who likes a bad person, but even then continues to give into his every demands. I liked her very much. The Chief didn't want McMurphy, who wanted to get out more than anything else, to live on like that. So, he strangled him to death and in truly symbolic reference lifted the water basin or something and threw it through the windows and escaped into the bleak Oregon morning. I thought McMurphy was the one who would fly out of the cuckoo's nest, but it wasn't the case. If McMurphy had lived and escaped, this wouldn't be a great classic and it wouldn't have been remembered still today. Director Milos Forman, pat yourself on the back for this amazing gem.
Three brilliant moments in the film are 1. the fishing trip 2. the party in the mental hospital. 3. The jaw-dropping ending. This and the very real performances by the actors as mental patients made the film excellent for me. I am only glad that today's mental institutions don't resemble the prison-like hospitals back then. This also represents the society's attitude towards mentally challenged people. There is a scene where McMurphy tells the patients that they are no more crazy than the average goon out there in the streets, that was a brilliant scene. And the shock that flits over McMurphy's face when he finds out that most of them have come into the mental hospital voluntarily and he is one of the very few committed persons in there is awesome. The dialogue after this revelation in which he says to Billy that he should go out there and be in a convertible, bird-dogging chicks and banging beaver is supremely spectacular. I haven't read the book, nor do I want to because I want to keep this amazing version in my head. Jack Nicholson is at his best here and everybody should see this movie at least once before they die.
10/10 - Girish, 20