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| The Doctor
Year: 1991
Classification: Drama
Directed:
- Randa Haines
Actors/Actresses:
- William Hurt
- Christine Lahti
- Elizabeth Perkins
Moral, moving, and marvellous movie...
Every doctor - and every patient! - should see this movie; the difference is that, not all doctors will understand *why* they should see it..
I use The Doctor when teaching my medical students how to avoid becoming a certain kind of doctor; the kind who is so detached from humanity that they never feel anything of the pain, fear - and the hope - that their patients feel. They have forgotten how to care, and they don't care to remember it.
This is a film about a medical `Everyman`; Jack (played by William Hurt with great integrity and skill)is redeemed as a human being - and as a doctor - by his own experience of serious illness, and by that of his friend - her death frees him from the blinkers of self-absorption. The scene where the two of them dance in the Nevada desert is breathtaking.
Supporting cast are excellent; especially Mandy Patinkin as Jack's unscrupulous surgical partner. Jack's initially dysfunctional family life is a central part of this movie, and the roles of his wife and son are well played.
The last scenes are amongst the best; especially where Jack is explaining to his interns why they are going to spend the next 24 hours not as doctors, but as hospital patients - wearing hospital gowns, undergoing all the appropriate tests, and (horror of horrors) eating hospital food.
The following and final scene is simply beautiful, as Jack stands on the roof of the hospital and dances by himself, revived and renewed.
Anyone involved in medical or healthcare education should have this video - and use it! Others should watch it to understand better what can happen to medical students along the way to becoming doctors.
A dose of your own medicine
After getting over the initial shock of seeing half the cast of Chicago Hope (when it was still a good show...and not the pale imitation of itself that it later became: Alan Arkin, Mandy Patinkin, Christine Lahti), this movie evolves into a fine, quiet, character driven drama. There are no great heroics, apart from June (Elizabeth Perkins), and even those are real, not manipulative, cliched, corny or obvious.
This is a movie that works to develop its characters and plot simultaneously and without artifice or obvious (groanable/cringe inducing) plot devices. None of them are in anwyay what you would call 'extreme' or cliched. They are just very normal people placed is a very stressful situation- the doctor being diagnosed with a growth in his throat and the changes in many lives this growth causes. The changes are both good, bad and 'educational' for most of them. The subplot- hospitals, statistics, malpractice cases, protecting each other- is subdued, never moralized or sermonized on but explored in a way whereby you can make your own judgements, based on some realistics situations (imagine a situation where somebody's life was worth less than $1000). The cast compliment each other and really connect. This movie is quite subtle at times and doesn't use in your face methods to make a point.
This is a movie then that is honest, beautifully made, accessible and at times really funny, and at times really raw and saddening. It isn't an episode of ER. So if you're looking for high medical drama look elsewhere. But if you're looking for real multi-layered human drama then look here. Honesty is the key word and theme in the movie (which if you watch it you'll understand what I mean). Honesty to oneself, others and just to the concept in general. And how too, sometimes we find spiritual and psychological 'healing' in the midst of the greatest physical peril.
The DVD contains no special features, only the movie, scene selection and set-up. Though it was made in 1990, it doesn't look too dated (apart from the cell-phones).
I have to admit watching this movie, I looked at the clock on the DVD player and actually hoped it wouldn't end. How many movies can you say that about?
I think the best moment in the story is when the doctor reads the story June gave him. I think there is a lesson in that that is relevant to all of us. Hopefully you'll get the opportunity to see what I mean by watching this movie.
SO in all, a brilliant, engrossing, poignant and real human drama built around believeable characters doing normal things and suffering typical tragedies that are enormous in our own lives. These are people we can understand and relate to, not the superficial and stereotypical larger-than-life, weirder-than-fiction characters designed to play with our minds and strum on our heartstrings. These people do touch your heart and mind for the right reasons...And maybe, if only for a moment, it causes you to question and reassess how yo
THE MOVIE THAT KILLED M.A.S.H.
The Doctor was another of those excellent, well-made 1990-91 releases pre-empted by laser-guided bombs and missiles of the 1990 Gulf War and forced into the video occult. But that's not stopped it from a second chance via DVD where it may get well-deserved recognition and revenues for each actor and crew's excellent contributions.<BR> The cast drove home messages that health care professionals need take a good look at "because one day you'll be sick to" ... So "physician, heal thyself" and thereby prepare to heal others all the way down to your bedside manners. The Word is eventually sent via Jack McKee and partner whose cavalier professionalism ("Get in, cut it out and couldn't care less!") is callously unsuited to genuine warmth patients need communicated to them. And then there's the insurance companies who, like them, run on "stats" and "the bottom line" to coldly determine who lives and dies on the medical production line.<BR> You don't know what it's like until you hear those 3 words "You've got cancer"; they'll floor you -especially if you're a physician who knows the realities of catastrophic illness. So "a taste of my own medicine" (subtitle to book movie is based on) engages McKee when he's told that. I've walked hospital hallways like McKee on the way to radiation therapy and sat with the terminally ill, knowing I'd likely survive (Or would I?) and that others were terminal, and encountered my own death watch. The disingenuous reassurance McKee gave others is sheer hypocrisy and his facetious talk of golf antagonizes "the herd," whom he'd felt beneath his ivory tower profession and HIS herd of incompetents. But now, his relation with a dying patient, whom he actually befriends, turns him inward and he admits his and the profession's shortcomings - then he falls out of love with himself - all too late to save her but soon enough to save himself and his family from the same callousness engulfing all but a few.<BR> It sends a strong message to those who profit from medicine at the deadliest expense to others whom it's supposed to save! My only complaint is that Amazon.com hasn't mailed me my DVD of it yet. How long will it take?
Buy The Doctor at Amazon.com
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