|
Popcorn Reviews
With Cybèle: Patch Adams
By Cybèle Elaine Werts
CybeleW@aol.com
First published
in the Shelburne News, Shelburne Vermont
Popcorn Kernel Rating (four possible): Four
kernels for courage, subtlety, and faith.
Last year when I reviewed City of Angels, I
mentioned that both I and the audience wept throughout the
movie. The reason for the vale of tears was that the director
pulled all the heart strings the easy way, yanking our emotions
around like marionettes. The audience at Patch Adams was weeping
too, but it wasn’t because of tawdry games on the part of the
director. We cried because each of us has been in that place of
no hope. Each of us has yearned for a vocation, something to
make our lives meaningful. Each of us has been rejected by
someone we loved. Patch Adams (Robin Williams) did all these
things with a gentle humility that reached past the
movie-watching me to the me deep inside.
What you might not have known is that Patch
Adams is a real person. Still alive, and still fighting the
cause of more compassionate medical care. The question is then,
how true is this movie which follows his years in medical school
where he used humor to reach patients? In my own writing, the
stories are not so much literally true as they are figuratively
true. I write about the essence of the story, because real
details aren’t that important and sometimes get in the way of
the message. So I suspect that the movie Patch Adams is the
essence of his life, if not the literal moment-to-moment truth.
Sure, there are some hard and painful times, all the more
painful because we know they really happened. But unlike City of
Angels which left us only with a commercial rendition of spirit,
Patch Adams left us with strength, hope, and compassion.
Suggested Gustatory Accompaniment: Spaghetti
(you’ll get it when you see the movie)
Copyright 2000
|
