Category Archives: Movies

A Beautiful Mind (2001)

Leave a reply
Send to Kindle

A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind

A Beautiful Mind

Starring: Russell Crowe, Jennifer Connelly
Director: Ron Howard, based on the book by Sylvia Nasar
Year of Release: 2001
Run Time: 134 minutes
Genre: Drama, Biography
Reviewer: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: John Forbes Nash Jr. was a brilliant economist, except when schizophrenia derailed his mind. The film illustrates his struggle with the disease and the way he was able to salvage a satisfying life.

In 1947, John Nash (Crowe) was a graduate student in mathematics at Princeton University, mentally brilliant but socially inept and casting about for original research for his thesis. His partying roommate, Charles, becomes his close friend; he finds his project,  and goes on to his doctorate and a career at Wheeler Institute at MIT, with the Department of Defense contracts and secret work along with teaching.

Nash marries a graduate student, Alicia (Connelly), and before long, the schizophrenia which has been there all along surfaces, resulting in hospitalization and the grueling treatments of the time, including insulin shock. These scenes are hard to watch as the nightmare of his disease engulfs him and threatens his family. He endures a painful time of not recognizing his delusions; the medications which control them have side effects disturbing both libido and the ability to think; and, preferring clarity of mind, he stops taking his pills. This leads to another breakdown.

Eventually, he prevails on a former classmate, now department head at Princeton, to let him work in the library and audit classes. He works his way back into teaching and, at the end of the film, wins the respect of his colleagues and the Nobel Prize in Economics for his revolutionary work on Game Theory. He confesses the delusions are still there, but he chooses to ignore them and pursue his work and life.

There are humorous one-liners amidst the confusion and pain of the illness and the cast is superb in all areas. The film won an Academy Award for Best Picture, Ron Howard for Best Director, and Jennifer Connelly for Best Supporting Actress.

The Kite Runner (2007)

Leave a reply
Send to Kindle

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner

The Kite Runner

Starring: Khalid Abdalla, Atossa Leoni,
Directed by: Marc Forster, based on the best-selling debut novel by Khaled Hosseini
Year of Release: 2007
Run Time: 127 minutes
Genre: Drama, Social Issue Drama
Reviewed by: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: In 2000, Amir, a novelist in California, is called back to Afghanistan by an old friend who offers him the puzzling “way to be good again”.

The film closely resembles the parts of the book The Kite Runner it chooses to portray, and builds heavily, and successfully, on the emotional connections and disconnections within families and between friends. It begins in 1978 with two boys, best friends, Amir and Hassan, servant to Amir’s wealthy father, Baba. They run the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan, fly fighting kites, and listen to Amir read stories to Hassan. Amir is a disappointment to his father, preferring to write over more manly deeds, and finally betraying his friend in an act of jealousy. In 1979, the Russians invade; everything changes; and Baba and Amir flee to America.

Several years later, the father works in a garage. He and Amir also work at a weekend flea market where Amir falls in love with Soraya, daughter of a former Pashtun General who waits to be recalled to his country and duty. As a last act of love for his son, the dying Baba asks the arrogant general for Soraya’s hand in marriage to Amir, which he grants. In 2000, Amir’s first book is published. At almost the same moment, Rahim Khan, Amir’s beloved friend and mentor from childhood, now dying, urges him to come to Pakistan and offers “a way to be good again”.

Amir reluctantly goes, discovers family truths, and is impelled to drive to Kabul, Afghanistan, and rescue Hassan’s son, Sohrab, from an orphanage in the city ravaged by the Taliban. Here, he discovers a courage he didn’t know he had, as he defies the Taliban leader, the childhood bully now grown to terrible power. Amir rescues the abused boy who also rescues him in a similar act of courage. The traumatized boy wants nothing to do with the new life and people in it, but the final scene hints at hope to come.

The Kite Runner has much beauty: kites flying over Kabul and California, the old way of life in bustling Kabul, the majesty of vast plains, and snow-covered peaks. Be advised, it also contains horror: rape of a child, stoning of a woman, devastation by the invaders. As with the book, I’m left with a gnawing in my stomach at the things I’ve read and seen in this country we’ve been engaged with so intimately for the last decade. Yet, I’m glad to find in the film the emphasis at the end on healing, of psyches and relationships, if not of nations.

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)

Leave a reply
Send to Kindle

Lorenzo’s Oil (1992)

Lorenzo's Oil

Lorenzo's Oil

Starring: Nick Nolte, Susan Sarandon
Writer and Director: George Miller
Year of Release: 1992
Run Time: 1 hour, 16 minutes
Genre: Drama based on real life
Reviewer: Patricia Wellingham-Jones

Synopsis: Two parents search desperately for a cure for their son’s adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). The film was nominated for two Academy Awards.

“Lorenzo’s Oil” opens in East Africa with this Swahili War Song: “Life has meaning only in the struggle. Triumph or defeat is in the hands of God. So let us celebrate the struggle.” The family returns to Washington, DC, and the real story begins.

The film illustrates, if not celebrates, the struggle that ensues when Augusto and Michaela Odone discover their son, Lorenzo, has the rare—and incurable—disease adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD). Doctors know very little about it, believe there is no cure, and the small boy will likely die within a few months or years after withering away neurologically and physically. The family starts within the medical establishment and enrolls Lorenzo in a clinical trial to learn more about the disease.

As the ALD rapidly progresses, however, they lose patience and faith with traditional practices and cast about for something, anything, that will help their beloved child; if not cure the disease, at least, halt its terrible process. They approach things differently: Michaela with a fierce and protective love for Lorenzo, Augusto with an equally fierce need to understand, then interrupt the sequence of destruction. We see him falling asleep surrounded by medical texts while Michaela reads to Lorenzo for long hours to keep him engaged and interacting.

Their persistence is astounding, they alienate people right and left, but eventually, they find a clue which they follow to an elderly British chemist able to distill the proper formula in rapeseed and olive oils. This normalizes the accumulation of the very long chain fatty acids in the brain causing the steady decline and halts the progress of ALD.

The film was gripping, kept me watching despite the length, and made me think afterwards. The acting was good (Nolte’s Italian accent was distracting) and the boys playing Lorenzo at different ages did a superb job in a grim role. The music, largely from the classics, was magnificent and an integral part of the film for me. The final credits rolling over children taking Lorenzo’s Oil and doing well was inspiring; Lorenzo was then 14 and showing signs of improvement (vision returning and the boy learning to use a computer), although most of the ravages of ALD were still present.

When first released, Lorenzo’s Oil provoked much controversy. Studies into the effectiveness of the oil named after Lorenzo continue.