Awakenings

“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.