Summary:
“Awakenings” is an Academy award nominated drama film based on the true story of patients affected by encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s, as related by British neurologist Oliver Sacks in a non-fiction book of the same name. Dr. Malcolm Sayer, played by Robin Williams, is an American doctor with no prior experience of working with human patients, who seeks a job at Bainbridge Hospital for chronically unwell patients in the Bronx, New York. He gets the job despite his lack of experience because the hospital is severely under-staffed. The ward he is assigned is referred to as 'garden' by the nursing staff, because the patients there are to be simply 'fed and watered'.
Dr. Sayers, though not good at interpersonal relations, seems to be an empathetic man. He observes what his colleagues term reflex action in a new patient Lucy Fishman, something that he refers to as “borrowing the will of the ball”. Despite being laughed at, Sayer continues to experiment with other patients and observes similar behavior. He learns that all of these patients are victims of an encephalitis epidemic in the 1920s. According to Peter Ingham, an eminent doctor of that period, they are ‘children that just fell asleep’ and who had lost the ability to think. Sayer believes they are ‘alive inside’ because they respond to certain stimuli such as human touch, music, even patterns in the flooring. Leonard Lowe, played by Robert De Niro, who communicated his feelings to the doctor through an Ouija board, becomes the subject of Sayer’s experiments with L-DOPA, used to treat patients of Parkinson’s disease. Sayer’s decision to double his dose finally ‘awakens’ Leonard from his 30 year long death-like sleep.
Delighted by his success with Leonard, Dr. Sayer administers the same treatment to his other patients, awakening all of them. As Leonard discovers the simple pleasures of life and slowly adapts to the changed world around him, he finds himself being attracted to another patient’s daughter. He even tries to play cupid between Sayer and his nurse Eleanor, whose attempts at developing familiarity were never noticed by the shy doctor. In Leonard’s company, Sayer learns the importance of the small things in life that everyone else takes for granted.
Just as everything appears going well for Leonard, the side effects of L-DOPA take effect and Leonard begins to display paranoia and muscular tics. He demands freedom to be able to go for a walk by himself and gets violent when his request is denied. He even attacks Sayer when he attempts to explain that he is acting in a peculiar manner because of his medication. As his condition worsens, the other patients begin to fear that they too will meet the same fate. Nothing appears to help Leonard; not even progressively higher doses, as he turns into ‘a collection of tics’. Slayer helplessly watches as Leonard slowly lapses back into catatonia. Eleanor, consoles him by telling him that he feels that way because he is a good man and Leonard is his friend. Soon, all the patients are back into their catatonic state. Sayer explains the events to the board of directors and tells them that all that can be done is to ‘wait for another awakening’. The movie ends with Sayer asking Eleanor out for a cup of coffee. In a way, this is his own awakening.
Some of the unethical behavior seen in the film is as follows:
Dr. Sayer is employed at a hospital for human patients even though none of his previous work has involved human patients.
Dr. Sayer attempts to treat catatonic patients with L-Dopa, which was used to treat those suffering from Parkinson’s disease even though he is unsure of what effect it would have.
He secretly increases the dose administered to Leonard when the initial dose does not seem to have any effect.
Instead of using the drug on Leonard and then observing for side effects, Sayer goes ahead and administers the drug to all the post-encephalitis patients.
