In this genteel picture of mental illness, Kier Dullea is David, sent to a kind of boarding school for disturbed young adults. The dozen or so other students, or patients, are a diverse lot. Some seem pretty much like everyone else. But Lisa, Janet Margolin, is clearly schizophrenic. David may be obsessively neat and won't let anyone touch him, but that's peanuts compared to Lisa's looping around like a hebephrenic and speaking in clumsy, repetitive rhymes. After many tribulations, the two seem to cure one another. At the climax, Dullea extends his hand to the stressed-out Margolin and she speaks warmly to him in plain English.
Of course everyone enjoys a happy ending and this film gives it to the viewer. The head shrink, Howard Da Silva, plays practically no part in the remission of their symptoms. He makes a few remarks and is accommodating and that's about it.
A couple of observations. The gradual improvement of both David and Lisa is rather nicely handled. Gradually, David loses his supercilious quality, his superiority to everything around him. It's not just in the dialog either, but In the way Dullea handles it. He becomes less cross, more thoughtful. He develops a vision of a future that isn't governed by inhuman mechanical forces. He starts thinking about medical school rather than electronic clocks set to perfect time by radio (which we have today).
And Lisa's unhurried change from a sloppy child/woman into something resembling an adult is reasonably well done too -- not so much through the character's behavior but through symbols of internal life like clothing and grooming. When we first see Margolin, she's a slob. She's in a high-waisted dress with a tangled mop of hair, playing hop scotch on the schools floor tiles and raving to herself. By the end, she's in neat, bright clothing and her hair is tidy.
In fact, she's stunningly beautiful, with her large wet calf eyes and her flawless features. Her idoneous presence carries with it a reigning melancholy, due, I think, to the configuration of her eyebrows. She can't help looking a little distressed all the time. Her acting talent was modest but she was extremely appealing into middle age, or as far into middle age as fate took her. A shame.
I can't tell whether Keir Dullea is handsome or not but he's certainly as clean cut as the role calls for, and he uses his clipped, authoritarian voice to good effect.
It's not a very realistic story. This is some expensive boarding school we're talking about. I have no idea how that Hispanic psychopath got in there. The only thing wrong with him is that he's too horny. Somebody with Margolin's disorder is far more likely to wind up in a state hospital where nobody can play the piano because there is no piano, nor are there paintings on the walls or "A Day In Paris" celebrations. Schizophrenia is a terrible illness. The entire family feels struck by lightning, and the patient doesn't wear make up like Margolin. And she doesn't get "cured" by falling in love with another patient, though she may remit spontaneously.
We don't know Margolin's back story but we know something of Dullea's. He's stuck in the same familiar trap as James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause" -- weak father, domineering mother. In case you missed it, Neva Patterson is cast as the hoity-toity mother. She's the CRP official in "All The President's Men" who refuses to be interviewed by Woodward and Bernstein, tells them they don't know the meaning of the word "loyalty", and closes the door in their faces. She chills the air of every room she enters.
But not to put the film down too much. It tackles a serious subject in a mature way. And although there are many goofs, none of them is serious enough to sap the film of its virtues. All stories of mental illness should end so satisfactorily.
Of course everyone enjoys a happy ending and this film gives it to the viewer. The head shrink, Howard Da Silva, plays practically no part in the remission of their symptoms. He makes a few remarks and is accommodating and that's about it.
A couple of observations. The gradual improvement of both David and Lisa is rather nicely handled. Gradually, David loses his supercilious quality, his superiority to everything around him. It's not just in the dialog either, but In the way Dullea handles it. He becomes less cross, more thoughtful. He develops a vision of a future that isn't governed by inhuman mechanical forces. He starts thinking about medical school rather than electronic clocks set to perfect time by radio (which we have today).
And Lisa's unhurried change from a sloppy child/woman into something resembling an adult is reasonably well done too -- not so much through the character's behavior but through symbols of internal life like clothing and grooming. When we first see Margolin, she's a slob. She's in a high-waisted dress with a tangled mop of hair, playing hop scotch on the schools floor tiles and raving to herself. By the end, she's in neat, bright clothing and her hair is tidy.
In fact, she's stunningly beautiful, with her large wet calf eyes and her flawless features. Her idoneous presence carries with it a reigning melancholy, due, I think, to the configuration of her eyebrows. She can't help looking a little distressed all the time. Her acting talent was modest but she was extremely appealing into middle age, or as far into middle age as fate took her. A shame.
I can't tell whether Keir Dullea is handsome or not but he's certainly as clean cut as the role calls for, and he uses his clipped, authoritarian voice to good effect.
It's not a very realistic story. This is some expensive boarding school we're talking about. I have no idea how that Hispanic psychopath got in there. The only thing wrong with him is that he's too horny. Somebody with Margolin's disorder is far more likely to wind up in a state hospital where nobody can play the piano because there is no piano, nor are there paintings on the walls or "A Day In Paris" celebrations. Schizophrenia is a terrible illness. The entire family feels struck by lightning, and the patient doesn't wear make up like Margolin. And she doesn't get "cured" by falling in love with another patient, though she may remit spontaneously.
We don't know Margolin's back story but we know something of Dullea's. He's stuck in the same familiar trap as James Dean in "Rebel Without A Cause" -- weak father, domineering mother. In case you missed it, Neva Patterson is cast as the hoity-toity mother. She's the CRP official in "All The President's Men" who refuses to be interviewed by Woodward and Bernstein, tells them they don't know the meaning of the word "loyalty", and closes the door in their faces. She chills the air of every room she enters.
But not to put the film down too much. It tackles a serious subject in a mature way. And although there are many goofs, none of them is serious enough to sap the film of its virtues. All stories of mental illness should end so satisfactorily.