A free-spirited criminal fakes insanity to get admitted to a mental hospital, where he rebels against the status quo set by an oppressive head nurse.
DRAMA
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One Flew Over the
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In the history of cinema, only three movies have won the so-called big 5 at the Academy Awards. Picture, Actor, Actress, Director, and Screenplay. One is 1934's It Happened One Night, another is 1991's The Silence of the Lambs, and the other is 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. There's a reason this film won those 5 Oscars. It's an undisputed masterpiece of cinematic genius that showed the world that Jack Nicholson was here to stay. It made him a household name and the biggest star in Hollywood, and it's intense themes and witty dialogue have helped it continuously find an audience even 45 years later.
Nicholson plays con-man R.P. McMurphy, who lies about his sanity in order to get sent to a mental hospital instead of a prison farm. While there, he engages in a battle of wills with the hospital's tyrannical head nurse Mildred Ratched (Fletcher, in an equally fantastic performance), who consistently has the upper hand. So, McMurphy treats his fellow patients like human beings and gives them a small taste of freedom and hope, which in the end, permanently fractures Ratched's hold on them. The characters are unforgettable in this film, and having just read the novel by Ken Kesey, the adaptation is pretty damn close. There's just so much to like about this 70's classic that to list everything would take forever. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a Best Picture winner that earned the gold. It's rewatchable as hell and never falters. It's hypnotizing seeing these men that society has deemed broken find a shred of hope thanks to McMurphy's unconventional methods of friendship. This timeless story will last forever, because there will always be a need for someone like R.P. McMurphy to challenge the status quo and remind those in charge that individuality and plain old human stubbornness will never die. |