One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest by Ben Parnell

Rating: 9/10 (22 January 2020)

The movie One Flew the Cuckoo's Nest is based on the novel written by Ken Kesey in 1962. This film is set in an Oregon psychiatric hospital with star, Jack Nicholson as Randle McMurphy, a new patient at the mental institution. McMurphy, a convict who has himself transferred to a state mental institution, throughout the movie he illustrates a stunningly persuasive portrait of a preeminently sane man being pushed to the outer limits of his sanity.
This film takes place in 1959, when mental institutions were not only unfair and cruel to their patients but the outside world around these hospitals were completely unaware of what was happening within these facilities. It was believed that mental illness was caused by possession of demons and witchcraft based off of their abnormal behaviors that they did not understand. Novelist Ken Kesey made this novel one of the best sellers of the 1960's from his time working the "graveyard shift" as an orderly at a mental facility. He not only spoke to patients within the institution, he also voluntarily took psychoactive drugs like LSD as a part of the CIA mind control program to "become an advocate to use these drugs as a path to individual freedom". Academy award winner for best director of the film, Milos Forman, uses main character McMurphy to represent freedom and self-determination which oppresses the ward controlled by Nurse Ratched by protesting the rules of the institution with manipulation of the system to his advantage. He begins by getting transferred for evaluation from a prison farm to a mental institution assuming that it will be a less restrictive environment but is shortly mistaken when he faces the iron fist of Nurse Ratched who runs the psychiatric ward keeping her patients cowed through mental abuse, medication, and electric shock therapy maintaining a permanently grip on the mentally ill creating a harsh reality for the viewers of the film being how it was back then.
Later, the film pieces itself together and reveals McMurphy, Chief, and Cheswick are the only non-chronic patients sentenced to stay in the institution as the rest are self-committed and could voluntarily leave at any time. Whether their insane or not, the hospital is undeniably in control of the fates of its patients. When he takes the group of patients fishing, he symbolizes Christ leading his twelve disciples to the sea to "test their faith" as he brings these men out into the real world to experience what freedom feels like.
The movie peaks when McMurphy sneaks two women, Candy and Rose, into the ward bribing the night guard to throw a secret christmas party for the night because of Nurse Ratched's absence. After partying all night McMurphy and Chief prepare to escape the hospital once again they invite Billy but he refuses. Ratchet arrives in the morning to find the ward in complete disarray with most of the patients passed out drunk. Meanwhile moments later, McMurphy is once again trying to escape while Billy commits suicide he stops and flies into a rage and pins Ratched to the floor, choking her with both hands until one of the guards knock him out. As Ratched comes back to the ward with a neck brace and scratchy voice, rumors spread that McMurphy has escaped in order to avoid being taken "upstairs" but later in the night he is returned to his bed. Chief hovers over McMurphys bed as hes sleeping and notices he's completely limp and unresponsive. He then flips his head up and discovers the lobotomy scars on his forehead.
The movie comes to an end when the viewers see this emotional ending to the movie when Chief smothers McMurphy with a pillow in an act of mercy but resolves when he is finally able to lift the hydrotherapy foundation out of the floor and throws it through the window and escapes into the night, cheered on by all McMurphys fellow patients, ending the movie in a sad but resolved state. The film One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a one of a kind movie created over 30 years ago but still carries the message that masculinity can be degraded just as easily as anything else which clearly spoke to the audience that watched this film, giving it the awards that it achieved.