"I am not an animal. I am a human being."

Rating: 8/10 (31 October 2017)

As compelling and at times, inspirational as the movie is, I was left somewhat disappointed with the film after I looked up some information on the real John Merrick. His real name was Joseph Carey Merrick, and it's true that he was born with severe deformities; if you look up a picture of the man, you'll realize what an outstanding job the filmmakers achieved here with the makeup for the character of The Elephant Man, portrayed by John Hurt. The movie John Merrick looks exactly like the real John Merrick.
Why director David Lynch decided to go with the opening sequence hinting at the origins of Merrick are simply confounding to me. It actually bothered me because there's no semblance of reality to it. In life, Merrick was not abandoned at birth, though his mother died when he was only nine years old. When his father remarried, both he and his stepmother rejected him. Leaving school at the age of thirteen and finding it difficult to find employment, he entered the Leicester Union Workhouse where he remained for four years until the age of seventeen.
It was actually Merrick himself who sought out a showman in order to be exhibited. While on a tour in Brussels, he was robbed and abandoned by his manager, eventually finding his way back to London. It's at this point in the movie when his association with Dr. Frederick Treves really began, although Treves first met him some time earlier when he lived at a shop across the street from The London Hospital.
If one allows for the historical inaccuracies, the movie can be a really touching experience, and I found myself definitely inspired by John Merrick's humanity and nobility of spirit. The film forces one to consider whether you could have summoned up the same amount of compassion for the kind of person Merrick was that Dr. Treves came by so naturally. One might ask one's self the same question Treves did at one point - "Am I a good man, or am I a bad man?"
Be that as it may, if you go by what's presented on screen, the movie definitely commands accolades. Director Lynch treats his subject with the same care and compassion that Treves showed The Elephant Man. The real John Merrick only lived to the age of twenty seven, and his cause of death is hinted at near the end of the film, with Merrick's haunting study of a picture depicting a girl sleeping in bed. Earlier in the story, Merrick expressed his desire that he could sleep like a normal person. Because of his deformities he had to sleep sitting up, but when his death occurred, the official cause was noted as asphyxia. However an autopsy by Dr. Treves revealed a dislocated neck. It caused this viewer to consider whether Merrick intentionally brought about a resolution to the quality of his life as a spectacle.