“Awakenings”
is a 1990’s movie directed by Penny Marshall. The movie shows a strong moral
message of never give up and sense of appreciation. The message was stronger
through the explanation of Social Comparison Theory, both upward comparison and
downward comparison. People usually tend to make downward comparison to make
ourselves feel better, which in this movie; I found that 2 main characters fit
into the comparison: Dr. Malcolm Sayer and Leonard Lowe. Dr. Malcolm Sayer was portrayed
to be a person that is shy, boring and sort of not mingle with crowds that well.
These can all be seen in the movie such as the place he went to “hang out” is a
botanical garden and he do not know how to react when he and the patients are
in the dance hall. On the other hand, Leonard Lowe was portrayed to be a seems-to-be-recovered
catatonic patient. He “recovered” from catatonic with dosage of L-dopa but
slowly revert back to catatonic state when L-dopa losses the effects. These two
characters seem to have the worst kind of personality and misfortune happens
onto them. However, these 2 characters show their determination towards dreams
and hope towards the unknown future, which gives a greater impact on life
affirming towards the audiences when they compared themselves to the
characters.
Also, there is one scene that really
touched my heart, that is when Leonard is saying goodbye to Paula because of
his disease is starting to get back to him, but instead Paula grabs him back
and dance with him. The whole scene was just filled with background music but
the emotions conveyed are not even able to describe through words. The only
critique for this scene to me is that, when they dance, Leonard’s spasms
disappeared. Although as touched as the scene is referring how love can conquer
all difficulties, this incident is highly impossible to occur real life.
