This is the first time I've watched "Patch Adams" in a lot of years. Watching this film in the light of Robin Williams' suicide just a couple of years ago gives a different feel to it. In fact, knowing what would ultimately happen to Williams creates a couple of scenes that are literally gut-wrenching. The very opening of the movie when Hunter (not yet "Patch") Adams - played by Williams - checks himself into a mental hospital because he's suicidal, and a scene toward the end of the movie when - with both his professional and personal lives having seemingly fallen apart - he stands at the edge of a cliff, venting to God and obviously thinking about ... Well, it's a powerful and unsettling scene even without knowing Williams' fate; even more unsettling with that knowledge.
"Patch Adams" tugs at the heartstrings in many ways. It elicits emotions and even perhaps a few tears - both of joy and of sadness. Anyone who isn't somehow emotionally touched by this movie is lacking a little bit of soul, I'd say. I would have to say that this is one of Robin Williams' absolute finest movies. I didn't always like his material; at times I found him way too over the top to actually be funny. Perhaps the secret to his success in "Patch Adams" is that he was being over the top - but in a movie that wasn't really a comedy. It's a dramatization of the real life story of Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams. In fairness, one has to point out that the real Patch Adams didn't much like the movie - apparently saying that it made him out to be little more than a funny doctor. Who am I to argue with the guy whose life was being dramatized? Regardless, I thought it made him out to be much more than just a funny doctor. He came across as caring and compassionate and concerned - a doctor who wanted to break through the sometimes artificial boundaries separating patients from doctors and establish real relationships with those under his care. I understand the concept of professional boundaries. I'm in a profession that shares the concern with the need for boundaries. But I also understand that sometimes they can get in the way of actually helping people. Setting my personal opinions aside, though, I thought this movie made the point that doctors have to be more than well educated authority figures with a title. They need to be real life flesh and blood people. Maybe the portrayal by Williams emphasized Adams' "funniness" - but not in a way that was disrespectful. And I say that as one who would confess that I would be put off by a doctor who engaged in some of Adams' antics. I do want my doctor to be a little more serious than that - but still human and approachable. The movie basically traces Adams' journey through medical school on his way to becoming a doctor and his battles with the establishment who often tried to stop him, leading up to a climactic appearance before the state medical board in Virginia.
The performances in this are basically first rate. Williams was superb. Monica Potter as his love interest - fellow medical student Carin Fisher - was also a standout as a young woman with a lot of issues from her past who's adopted a tough as nails outlook on life, driven to graduate and get the title and the prestige, but who is softened and changed by her evolving relationship with Patch. Carin, unfortunately, wasn't "real." She was kind of a composite character as I understand it - a bit of the woman the real Patch did meet in medical school and marry and a bit of his best (male) friend who was actually murdered. I'm not convinced of the need to blend the characters. That was too much of an artificial tearjerker - powerful, but when you find out the real story after watching the movie and what happens to "Carin" you feel a bit lied to. At least I did. Bob Gunton was perhaps a bit too much of a caricature as the Dean of the medical school - by the book, more concerned with diseases than patients, fixated on the honour and dignity and respect of the medical profession at the expense of feeling or compassion. Gunton's performance was good - but he did come across as a caricature. But those two things (the false "Carin" story, and the caricature of Dean Walcott) are about the only things that would cause me to mark this movie down. There really wasn't a bad performance in the movie from the supporting cast.
This truly is one of Robin Williams' finest movies. No one should call themselves a fan of his without having watched it, and anyone who isn't a big fan of his (and I have mixed feelings) needs to watch this to really appreciate his depth of talent. (9/10)
