Monday 14 November 2016

Flowers for Algernon Vs. Charly Movie review

Charly is a film directed by Ralph Nelson. It is based off the classic book Flowers for Algernon. The book, written in 1959, was produced as a movie in 1968 which people still continue to watch.

Description:
The movie follows the story of 32-year-old Charlie Gordon who is challenged with a mental disability that causes him to seem as though he doesn't belong in his own body both emotionally and intellectually and not experience life to the fullest. Charlie is given the chance to receive an experimental surgery that will increase his IQ and change him intellectually. A surgery which has only and still is in its experimental stages of being performed on a mouse named Algernon. Charlie finally gets to see the world with new eyes and actually understand everything in it. He finally gets to experience life for what it really is, shows his “friends” at the bakery that he is a human too, and even fall in love. But after discovering that his great pal Algernon the mouse is dead Charlie realizes that he doesn't have much time left. He works restlessly to come up with a theory as to why the experiment didn’t go right. He starts to become more of what he was before and forgets more things every day. Things continue to fall apart around him until everything goes back to the way it was. And Charlie Gordon is a 32year old man who finds joy in playing on the play structures at the park.

My thoughts on the book:
Flowers for Algernon is possibly one of the best classic books to read because of its engaging and creative storyline. I found it very intriguing to read due to the fact that I had never heard of an experiment similar to this one. The book gave an interesting perspective of what it's like to be a  mentally disabled person who had this surgery performed on them. It showed their progress, intellect and emotions from before and after the surgery and the after effects of the surgery. It also encompassed many different emotions that Charlie had. Instead of just focusing on the surgery and Charles IQ it also focuses on Charlie's relationships and emotions whether it be with Mrs. Kinnian and Fay or his family. During the parts where Charlie was seeing the original Charlie, I found it very creative and something that I had never read about before.




My thoughts on the movie:         
The movie altho would most likely be good to someone who never read the book was not actually very accurate to the actual occurrences in the book. Since some of the sections in the book were not in the movie it seemed as though parts of the movie didn't make sense and it missed very important parts that really shaped and helped you understand Charlie's character more. Charlie's family was not at all shown in the movie and it felt as though you were missing a whole part of Charlie because he didn't have flashbacks to how rough and sad his life was, which shaped Charlie's character in the future. They also had a period where they added Charlie doing drugs, hanging out with girls and riding motorcycles which didn't happen in the book I think this takes away because you don’t get to see Charlie improving his intelligence to his fullest potential. The movie takes some things from the book but they don't take important  character developing parts. The also go through all of the emotions and scenes very fast which takes away from the things that happened because they are going by so fast.


Movie reflection:
Considering that the movie was made in 1968 I believe that it was a very good movie for its time and that because the times were different then people may not have wanted to see certain things that were left out of the movie. The acting, for the most part, was good except for certain actors who could have done better. Cliff Robertson who played Charlie did an exceptional job showing the difference between mentally challenged and smart Charlie when he was mentally challenged Charlie he acted as though he was a child but there was more than just the child he acted as though he was a zombie as though he wasn't human at all. When he was smart Charlie he acted as a regular person he held himself higher and acted like he was better than everyone else which he thought he was during a section of the book.  Overall I found the acting pretty good and I especially loved the portrayal of Charlie which I found was very careful in not offending people who have mental disabilities.            


The Book vs. The Movie


                                                      Flower for Algernon            vs.                 Charley
Warren
Charlie seems as though he is visiting the Warren as a scientist who is interested in what they do there, but he is actually looking at the conditions for when he goes there.   
Charlie doesn't visit the Warren.
Surgery and after effects
The surgery is not described in great detail but afterward, how Charlie is feeling is described. Afterward, Charlie's eyes and head are covered with a bandage for a few weeks and he is visited by a nurse who does not agree with what Charlie has done. Charlie slowly starts to learn and he doesn't show signs of improving till a few other events take place. Charlie’s IQ starts to decrease very suddenly and he doesn't know about it till right before he starts to go.       
There is a quick scene of Charlie being knocked out so they can perform the surgery and then it goes straight to Charlie for a brief moment seeing Mrs. Kinnian after he has had surgery. Then right after Charlie’s IQ starts to improve and he starts to do things such as paintings which are progressively more sexual and disturbing as he gets smarter. Charlie knows that he is going to go back to the way he was at the conference and he announces it to everyone there, whereas in the book Charlie just lets Algernon out of the cage because he gets upset.


Algernon’s mental State after the operation
Algernon is doing well and is performing his tests very well up until just before the conference when he starts to not complete the maze, throw himself against the wall, bite people, not eat and many other crazy things. Then when Charlie runs away with Algernon he bites Fay and kills Minnie. The shortly after Algernon dies.  
There is no showing of Algernon going crazy except for when Charlie beats Algernon in the maze and Algernon doesn’t finish the maze. Then later 1 week before the conference Algernon and some other mice in his unit start to go crazy. Then on the day of the conference Charlie goes to see Algernon in his cage  and while giving his speech he pulls a dead Algernon out of his pocket and says “Charlie Gordon? Charlie Gordon is a fella who will go back to the way he used to be.” Then he says to Dr. Nemur and Dr. Strauss “ Why didn’t you tell me the experiment was temporary.”       





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