While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

It really made me laugh, but for some moments I was tearing up because I could relate so much.

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

"What we do know is that, as the chemical window closed, another awakening took place; that the human spirit is more powerful than any drug - and that is what needs to be nourished: with work, play, friendship, family. THESE are the things that matter. This is what we'd forgotten - the simplest things" Finally, I had the chance to watch Awakenings. My brother recommended it for me years ago, and since he is not into movies, so once he is captured by a movie, I know it's a good one. Apart from my brother, I found Awakenings is very beautiful and heartwarming. It has also some light scenes. They are not many, but sufficient for a movie that deals with catatonic conditions. Everyone here is perfect playing his role, and I mean everyone, from the two leads to the secondary roles. For Robert De Niro, he is excellent through the entire movie especially through the scenes where he acts as if he can't control his muscles. I think these scenes are difficult enough for any actor to make, but he brilliantly executed them. But frankly, I loved Robin Williams as Dr. Sayer or Dr. Oliver Sacks, the true neurologist whose book is that the movie is based on more. Here he is nerd, earnest, hopeful.Finally, despite being nominated for three Oscar awards, I think it's underrated, at least among the audience. And don't forget to bring some tissues.

I just watched it for the first time. I feel so emotional, what a good movie! To be honest I hadn't even heard about this movie before.. I saw it on netflix and I thought the actors were great so I pressed play. I am amazed! Really!!!!What makes it so great is the fact that it is based on a true story.. Thats what makes us so emotional, I cried a little bit :( and the actors, wow! Incredible acting by both Deniro and Williams. I can't let go of the characters in this movie, I wonder what happened later in their lifes... I searched google but could not find any answers.You know when you watch a movie and it is so good that you almost wish that you had not seen it so you can see it for the first time again and be as amazed as the first time! Thats how I feel about this movie. I love emotional movies though. I definitely recommend this movie!

"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/

A very very slow movie based on a true story, which is remembered particularly for the outstanding performance of Robert de Niro. How on earth did he not win the 1990/91 Oscar hands down after his portrayal of Leonard Lowe? Every time I watch this movie I have tears in my eyes from the scene where he tells the girl he loves he can't see her again, and watches her leaving from the window until the end. Robin Williams is...well, you know what you're gonna get from Robin Williams - for me the best actor of all time (DeNiro is second, in my opinion the two best actors star in 'Awakenings'.) Robin Williams plays a brilliant, yet incredibly shy and nervous doctor who joins a Psychiatric Hospital in New York where many of the patients are in a coma and dead to the World. Thanks to Dr. Sayer brilliance, a number of the patients including DeNiro 'awaken' from their state - some after decades - for a brief period in the summer of '69. There's a sad scene at the end where Dr. Sachs tells his nurse how Leonard had told him what a kind man he was...only for him to effectively give someone their life back, then take it away again and not be able to do anything about it. That's a sad scene played brilliantly by Robin Williams. Incidentally, the leading female is Julie Kavner who plays Nurse Eleanor Costello - she is world famous for the voice of Marge in The Simpsons!