Critics, box office face off over Patch
Med
student maverick movie is sentimental
and contrived, but people love it
Patch Adams,
starring Robin Williams, Monica Potter and Daniel London,
is directed by Tom Shadyac. Rated PG-13 for some strong
language and crude humor.
By
Peter T. Chattaway
ChristianWeek film critic
Once again, moviegoers have put the critics in their place. Patch Adams opened on Christmas Day to some of the worst reviews any film starring Robin Williams has ever faced, and then proceeded to rake in lots and lots of money. This critic did not see the film until after its dual reputation was well assured, and as often happens, I found myself falling somewhere between the two sides.
The biggest asset in this film’s favor–and also one of its biggest liabilities–is its familiarity. Williams, who has played doctors in several previous films, here plays real-life medical student Hunter "Patch" Adams, an unconventional campus clown who, being brilliant, gets to spend much of his time phoning strangers at random and looking for ways to make people laugh while his classmates cram for their final exams.
Steve Oedekerk’s script does pay brief attention to the Salieri-like jealousy this engenders in Patch’s peers, in particular his roommate Mitch (Philip Seymour Hoffman). But the film is, first and foremost, a melodrama which pits Patch and his flamboyance against the rigid regulations imposed on him by his uptight professors, including Dean Walcott (Bob Gunton), who boasts, improbably, that it is the school’s job to drain the students of their humanity.
Patch defies this principle at every turn. He puts a bright-red enema bulb on his nose so he can entertain children in the cancer ward. He creates giant anatomically suggestive props for a visiting conference of gynecologists. He fulfils the fantasies of older patients with rubber-band guns and noodle-filled pools. Walcott tries to have Patch expelled, but a higher authority, Dean Anderson (Harve Presnell), overrides him.
Meanwhile, Patch woos a reluctant girlfriend (Monica Potter) and inspires a wary sidekick (Daniel London) who, later on, must try to argue him out of a third-act funk. Can you say Good Morning, Vietnam?
Much to appreciate
There is much here that Christians can appreciate. Proverbs 17:22 tells us that "a cheerful heart is good medicine," and studies indicate that laughter does have healing properties. When Walcott chastises Patch for breaking all the rules, Patch replies that he does make a point of keeping the Golden Rule. And any film that resists the dehumanizing effects of modernity and encourages compassion is onto something worthwhile.
But just how compassionate is this film? Patch pays lip service to the blood and feces through which doctors and nurses must trudge to fulfill their task, but we never see any. More significantly, one can’t escape the feeling that Patch, far from "feeling with" his patients, is desperately trying to impose his own happiness on them. He wins everyone over far too easily, including Bill Davis (Peter Coyote), an angry man who throws things at all the nurses until Patch shows up wearing an angel costume.
The filmmakers, too, insist on sweeping us away in a wave of tacky sentiment. Following an offscreen tragedy connected to his commune-like clinic in the woods, Patch does get to vent his frustrations at God, but his faith is immediately restored by the sight of a butterfly and a surge of symphonic strings on the soundtrack. It’s all downhill from there, as Patch confronts a jury of medical peers and defends himself with a typically contrived courtroom speech.
Truly compassionate cinema does not sanitize its subjects or manipulate its audience so shamelessly. Films such as Dead Man Walking and Secrets & Lies–not to mention more unsettling fare like Happiness –have proved that sympathy is possible when characters and their actions are allowed to speak for themselves. Patch Adams may be based on a true story, but it feels too much like a movie for its own good.
