TheSheykhi had a great Idea and had aptitude to be a great movie but disaster screenplay and directing waste it! The characters were not well-developed at all. it made Inner desire to know the character's past but didn't give us any information. Their illness cured very fast and they got healthy and adapt themselves with conditions even faster! it took a few days for Leonard to be healthy(which is shorter than usual also) but for other patients, just a few hours! worse that script? it's directing. I had seen movie "big" by Penny Marshal before and I liked it so much but in this case, she sucked. the film is quite scattered and full of confusion. instead of concentrating on one or two topic, it wants to include several big topic which it isn't easily achievable. I think Marshall should focus on that part of the screenplay that was stronger and leave the weak part. I didn't like De Niro's. in fact he played healthy Leonard part well, but the ill Leonard, Disaster! although Williams was fairly good. Perhaps the script did not allow them to show more than that and director did not provide the base for them. I'm sure you know that a few years later, in the movie "Good Will Hunting" by Gus Van Sant, Robin Williams played a similar character and played it Fantastic.Now, you know what's funny? The film has three Oscars nominations for Best Film, Best Screenplay and Best Actor for De Niro!!

851222 Greetings from Lithuania."Awakenings" (1990) is very moving, very involving and superbly crafted picture. Loosely based on a real story, it tells a powerful one, very simple yet very moving story - miracle if you ask me.Performances are first rate here from the great Robert De Niro and very good one from Robin Williams. Directing is superb - at running time ~2 hours this movie never drags and is highly involving from start till finish. Script by the great Steven Zaillian is also superb, not overwritten, not to much sentimental. Overall, "Awakenings" is a movie which after seeing it once you will probably won't ever forget it. This is a drama without any action, but it is done so good that its hard to stop watching it and admire. Great movie all around.

neicho-79775 Awakenings is, both the happiest and saddest film I have ever seen. It is an emotional roller coaster. It is beautifully filmed. Robert De Niro and Robin Williams are exceptional in this movie. I have never reviewed a film before, but this one was so powerful I felt obliged to let others know. I'm not overly emotional but this one had me holding in the tears with a knot in my throat. It takes an exceptional film to do what this one does to you. There are a lot of meaningless ones out there, I wouldn't even call some of them films, but THIS is A FILM WORTH WATCHING.10/10

estebangonzalez10 "People have forgotten what life is all about. They've forgotten what it is to be alive. They need to be reminded."Following the huge success of her 80's comedy, Big, director Penny Marshall decided to approach a much more sensitive and serious subject matter in her next film based on Oliver Sacks' semi-biographical book about his work in a ward with patients in catatonic state. Robin Williams was cast to play Dr. Sacks, although the character's name was changed to Dr. Malcolm Sayer, a shy doctor who prior to have been hired at the ward had very little experience working with patients. He was obsessed with researching and doing lab work, but those skills came in handy when he began treating the catatonic patients at the ward. He discovered that several of the patients that had been in the ward for decades had one thing in common: they had survived a rare form of encephalitis, but the disease left them in their current catatonic state. Most of the doctors believed there was no treatment for these patients, but he began to discover that some of them responded to certain stimuli. Not giving up on them, he decides to attend a lecture where he discovers a new drug that had been effective on patients suffering from Parkinson's, and he believes it might just help awake his patients as well. Casting Robin Williams for the role and having released this only two years after the commercial success of Big, one could easily have expected this to be a comedy, but casting Robert De Niro as the other lead easily put to rest that assumption. De Niro had also worked on Goodfellas the same year as this and he continued to be at the prime of his career. In Awakenings he plays Leonard Lowe, one of the patients who has remained in the same state for nearly four decades and who is still being cared for by his mother, Mrs. Lowe (Ruth Nelson), at the clinic. With the approval of the other doctors at the ward and Leonard's mother, he is chosen for a trial run with the drug. It doesn't take too long for Dr. Sayer to see the results he was expecting as Leonard seems to wake up from his catatonic state. The two begin to form a special bond and the positive results induce Sayer to test the drug on the rest of the patients in the ward in a similar way. As we become witnesses of Leonard's awakening we also begin to see life through his eyes as someone who feels he has lost so many years and now wants to enjoy life to the fullest. His awakening serves the reclusive Doctor as a reminder to begin living life and enjoying human interaction. There is a sub plot revolving his relationship with a nurse from the ward played by Julie Kavner, but the main theme is Sayer's relationship with these patients. Marshall's film was nominated for Best Picture, and just like her previous movie it also earned a nomination for the lead actor, De Niro. De Niro does a superb job playing this awakened catatonic patient, and it is evident that he did his homework and studied every single facial and body tic of the real patients. Sacks had filmed his patients in real life during their awakening periods and so there was a lot of material they had to work with. Robin Williams plays a much more restrained character than what we were used to seeing him do, so his performance might not seem as delightful as his other films but he delivers a solid dramatic turn. The third nomination that the film received was for Steven Zaillian's adapted screenplay which was powerful. He didn't win the Oscar for this film, but he went on to win it two years later for his work in Schindler's List. Spielberg said it was his adaptation in Awakenings that earned him the job for his film. This movie is emotional and touching without being manipulative because it sticks to the true story which was definitely one that had to be told in the big screen. http://estebueno10.blogspot.com/