thursdaysrecords Several accomplished cast members (winners of International awards, including previous Oscar win by title character) promised a compelling true story, but didn't quite deliver. - Set in Post WWII rural Kansas, the title character is a Native American who is a war veteran with chronic inexplicable painful episodes suggesting brain injuries. Because the local VA Hospital is puzzled by Jimmy's unique condition, a French psychoanalyst (a Freudian scholar) stuck in New York City due to his questionable legal residence and work status, is sent for to assist in figuring this case out. - Jimmy grows to trust this Frenchman and eventually confides the darkest memories that had troubled him from childhood on. Although this story is based on actual events, I don't find it particularly compelling. There could be many such "true stories" of mental patients told, all with equally moving details and outcomes. The one detail that impressed me was how prejudices against Native Americans were still part of daily life in America, but how simultaneously individuals began to demand respect for minorities, rejecting coded racism. A nurse talking down to Jimmy saying "you can paint the town red" was clearly racist and patronizing. In one scene Jimmy corrected a military official about being properly addressed "My name isn't Chief, it's Jimmy, so you call me Jimmy!". At another point the French psychoanalyst had an outburst and demanded that his patient's medical care be equal to that of any white man. Such moments show the progress in the fight for equality, with a long way to go. For 1948 standards, however, a remarkable progress nonetheless.The few bright moments in this film don't rationalize the running time of almost 2 hours. Slow and drawn out. At the end of the film, I was still looking for more of a point than was delivered.

alevinadresi The other reviewers already provided extensive descriptions about the movie's plot and characters. So I will just skip it. This is a slow-paced movie but it flows in its own pace and takes you with it. There are some parts that you can relate to yourself, even though you are not a traumatized veteran, that makes you go "ahhh I know the feeling" or "It happens to me, too". I loved the way the dreams were shown to the audience. That made the movie more interesting and fun to watch for me. Benicio Del Toro was great as always. He adjusted himself to the slow-pace of the movie so well that it feels so natural. And thank God that I finally could see him at least kiss a lady in a movie. Hallelujah! Although at times, I must admit it was hard to believe that he was Native Indian, especially in the scenes when he is surrounded by real Native Indians, he still pulls it so well and gives a terrific performance, so much that you feel for him, and believe that he is in fact a person with a soul pain. I also loved how well Mathieu Amalric played the eccentric anthropologist although his character's eccentricity was a bit of cliché. He still managed to make me believe in his role. All in all, if you are not into fast-paced action movies or movies with a surprise unexpected turn of events, but more inclined to watch real world movies with a human touch, than you should give this one a chance.

l_rawjalaurence JIMMY P. is structurally a mess. Director Arnaud Desplechin is never quite sure what he wants the film to say: whether it comments on the status of Native Indians in postwar Amerıca; the suspicious status of much activity going under the name of psychology; life in institutions based on locking people up and asking questions later; or asking us to reflect on the fine dividing line between madness and sanity.The plot is a straightforward one: Jimmy Picard (Benicio Del Toro), a Native Indian veteran of World War II, suffers from terrible headaches. Confined to an institution, he comes under the care of maverick psychologist Georges Devereux (Benicio Del Toro), who nurses Picard back to health through a series of insistent questions while probing deeply into his sexual past. There is only one snag: Devereux's background is equally shady; he might or might not be a practicing psychiatrist, and he himself undergoes therapy at the end of the film.Shot in atmospheric colorlessness, the film recreates a world where anyone differing from racial or psychological norms - as constructed by whites - is automatically identified as deviant, and hence not worth treating. It is only due to Devereux's persistence that Picard recovers at all; and even then, the psychiatrist has to browbeat the institution's director Dr. Menninger (Larry Pine) into agreement.The actual process of recovery is perfunctorily handled; while the racial themes become lost in a convoluted subplot involving Devereux's friend Madeleine (Gina McKee), Howard Shore's musical score is unnecessarily intrusive, its syrupy fat chords directing attention away from Picard's soliloquy describing his mental state, almost as if director Desplechin was under the impression that viewers could not concentrate on words alone.The ending is equally unsatisfactory, as we have no idea what will happen to Picard, once released from the institution. He vows to see his family, but the potential traumas presented by the workaday world after such a long time spent in confinement are simply left unexplored. In many ways JIMMY P. is something of a wasted opportunity to make a comment on discrimination and its consequences in America's past.

macktan894 Each of us springs from cultures that form our worldview, guide our behavior, create our sensibilities. But non-whites, especially, are coerced into discarding that identity and, through acculturation, becoming someone that they really aren't, someone who, over time, can no longer understand why they dream of a bear, a fox, and a baby and what in the world those images mean. An early scene in Jimmy P shows a white doctor asking Jimmy to respond to a picture he's shown of some white demonic guy with a knife in what looks like an operating room. Jimmy can't free associate anything from that picture. Not because he's crazy, but because it's meaningless to him. But later he can uncover meaning in a dream that includes a bear, a fox, and a baby. Over a generation or two, Jimmy has lost many connections to his own past and cultural traditions. Although he can still sense them, he can't interpret them as they relate to his own psychological issues. He's broken laws that the dominant cultural doesn't regard as criminal at all. Not understanding this, he punishes himself even though freed by a white court of law. Although Thunderheart may have been more entertaining, Jimmy P is enlightening about the psychic damage that happens when cultural and ethnic peoples are punished for who they are and made to ape other cultures to become accepted.