Escaping the Bird

Jack Nicholson is checked in to a mental institution and his skills as an amateur therapist quickly outshine the nurses and doctors in 1975's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The film certainly has a valid point even if it does stack the deck a bit.

The administrative staff aren't even convinced Randle McMurphy (Nicholson) is as crazy as he would have them believe. He may be feigning mental illness entirely to avoid prison labour, having been convicted for having sex with a fifteen year old girl. His charisma and provocative antics rapidly win the sympathy and loyalty of the inmates over the consummately starchy Miss Ratched (Louise Fletcher). When Randle successfully gets the other inmates to vote to have the World Series shown instead of listening to Ratched's sedate classical selections yet again, she's compelled to change the voting rules so that even inmates who are clearly incapable of comprehending the vote must also be counted. Naturally, this only shores up more loyalty for Randle.

The movie's trajectory is pretty clear from the beginning but it's certainly true to life. A lot of critical thought about the film is concerned with the nature of true madness but I don't think it presents a fair argument on that. Randle takes them all out for a fishing trip and there's miraculously not even one significant mishap. What if there had been, as likely would've been the case? Would that have proved Randle wrong and Ratched right? No, because the real argument isn't about who's mad but about who's genuinely concerned for his or her fellow human being. Randle intuitively knows that providing the inmates with opportunities to gain a sense of self-worth will be more constructive than Ratched's philosophy of mental and physical sedation.

The film has a great cast. Both Nicholson and Fletcher are great and the supporting cast is flawless, featuring Will Sampson, Brad Dourif, Christopher Lloyd, Danny DeVito, and Scatman Crothers.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is available on The Criterion Channel.