Patch Adams is a 1998 comedy-drama film starring
Robin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
. Directed by
Tom ShadyacThomas Peter "Tom" Shadyac is an American comedian, director, screenwriter, and producer. Shadyac, who was the youngest joke-writer ever for comedian Bob Hope, is widely known for writing and directing the films Ace Ventura: Pet Detective, The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar, Bruce Almighty, and the...
, it is based on the life story of
Dr. Hunter "Patch" AdamsHunter Doherty "Patch" Adams, M.D. is an American physician, social activist, citizen diplomat and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971...
and the book
Gesundheit: Good Health is a Laughing Matter by Adams and Maureen Mylander. The film is generally considered a box-office success, grossing over twice its budget in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
alone. However, it was poorly received by most critics.
Plot
In 1969, Hunter Adams (
Robin WilliamsRobin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
) is a troubled man who voluntarily commits himself into a mental institution. Once there, he finds that helping his fellow inmates gives him a purpose in life and earns the nickname "Patch". Because of this he aspires to become a medical doctor and two years later enrolls at Virginia Medical University, being the oldest first year student. He questions the school's approach to medical care, and clashes with the school's
DeanIn academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both...
Walcott (
Bob GuntonRobert Patrick "Bob" Gunton, Jr. is an American actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters, with his best known roles as Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison film The Shawshank Redemption, Chief George Earle in 1993's Demolition Man, and President Juan Peron in the original...
), who believes that doctors must treat patients and not bond with them as people. Because of this and other incidents, including a prank during a medical conference, he is expelled from the school, although he is later reinstated due to his methods actually improving the health of patients. Adams encourages medical students to cultivate relationships with nurses and learn their interviewing skills early, and argues that death should be treated with dignity and even humor.
Adams begins a friendship with fellow student, Carin Fisher (
Monica PotterMonica Potter is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Potter, one of four daughters, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Irish American Roman Catholic family. Her father, Paul Brokaw, was the inventor of the first flame-resistant car wax, and her mother, Nancy, was a secretary....
), and develops his idea for a medical clinic built around his
philosophyPhilosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
of treating patients through humor and compassion. With the help of Arthur Mendelson (
Harold GouldHarold V. Goldstein , best known by his stage name Harold Gould, was an American actor best known for playing Martin Morgenstern in the 1970s sitcoms Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as Miles Webber in The Golden Girls...
), a wealthy man who was a patient whom Patch met while in the mental hospital, he purchases 105 acres (425,000 m²) in
West VirginiaWest Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
to construct the future
Gesundheit! InstituteThe Gesundheit! Institute is a project founded by Dr. Hunter "Patch" Adams in 1971, located outside of Hillsboro in Pocahontas County, West Virginia. The Institute states its vision as being dedicated to revolutionizing health care delivery by replacing what the Institute sees as greed and...
. Together with Carin, medical student Truman Schiff (
Daniel LondonDaniel London is an American actor, possibly most notably famous for his roles in Patch Adams and Rent.-Life and career:Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, London began writing and acting in plays in high school. While a student at Mt...
), and some old friends, he
renovatesRenovation is the process of improving a structure. Two prominent types of renovations are commercial and residential.-Process:The process of a renovation, however complex, can usually be broken down into several processes...
an old cottage. When they get the clinic running, they treat walk-in patients without
medical insuranceHealth insurance is insurance against the risk of incurring medical expenses among individuals. By estimating the overall risk of health care expenses among a targeted group, an insurer can develop a routine finance structure, such as a monthly premium or payroll tax, to ensure that money is...
, and perform
comedyComedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
sketches for them.
Carin and Patch's friendship soon turns into romance. She reveals to him that she had been molested as a child, distancing herself from men and dreaming of becoming a butterfly to escape her torment, but Patch reassures her that she can overcome her pain to help others. Encouraged, Carin wants to help a disturbed patient, Lawrence "Larry" Silver (Douglas Roberts), by visiting him at home. Larry turns out to be far more disturbed than anybody expected, and
murderMurder is the unlawful killing, with malice aforethought, of another human being, and generally this state of mind distinguishes murder from other forms of unlawful homicide...
s Carin, turning the shotgun on himself soon after. Patch is devastated and guilt-ridden by Carin's death. He reconsiders his outlook, and questions the goodness of humanity. He contemplates
suicideSuicide is the act of intentionally causing one's own death. Suicide is often committed out of despair or attributed to some underlying mental disorder, such as depression, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, alcoholism, or drug abuse...
and questions
GodGod is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
for what happened. He then turns to see a butterfly which reminds him of Carin and hope, and so decides to continue his work in her honor. However he is dismissed from the school for a second time because he ran a clinic and practiced medicine without a license. He files a grievance with the state medical board at the advice of his former Med school roommate, Mitch Roman (
Philip Seymour HoffmanPhilip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
), and must attend a hearing where it is decided whether he can graduate.
Patch is able to convince the board in a final speech that he did his best to help the people that came to him, and as a doctor it is his responsibility to treat the disease of the body as well as a person's spirit regardless of outcome. The jury accepts Patch's medical methods and decides to allow him to graduate. He receives a standing ovation from the packed hearing room. Even at graduation, Patch cannot help but be a non-
conformistConformity is the process by which an individual's attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors are influenced by other people.Conformity may also refer to:*Conformity: A Tale, a novel by Charlotte Elizabeth Tonna...
. After handing Adams a diploma, Walcott approves of Patch's conformity, to which Patch bows to the professors and the audience, revealing his
nude bottomThe buttocks are two rounded portions of the anatomy, located on the posterior of the pelvic region of apes and humans, and many other bipeds or quadrupeds, and comprise a layer of fat superimposed on the gluteus maximus and gluteus medius muscles. Physiologically, the buttocks enable weight to...
under his gown.
Cast
- Robin Williams
Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...
as Dr. Hunter "Patch" AdamsHunter Doherty "Patch" Adams, M.D. is an American physician, social activist, citizen diplomat and author. He founded the Gesundheit! Institute in 1971...
- Daniel London
Daniel London is an American actor, possibly most notably famous for his roles in Patch Adams and Rent.-Life and career:Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, London began writing and acting in plays in high school. While a student at Mt...
as Truman
- Philip Seymour Hoffman
Philip Seymour Hoffman is an American actor and director. Hoffman began acting in television in 1991, and the following year started to appear in films...
as Mitch
- Monica Potter
Monica Potter is an American film and television actress.-Early life:Potter, one of four daughters, was born in Cleveland, Ohio, to an Irish American Roman Catholic family. Her father, Paul Brokaw, was the inventor of the first flame-resistant car wax, and her mother, Nancy, was a secretary....
as Carin
- Bob Gunton
Robert Patrick "Bob" Gunton, Jr. is an American actor. He is known for playing strict, authoritarian characters, with his best known roles as Warden Samuel Norton in the 1994 prison film The Shawshank Redemption, Chief George Earle in 1993's Demolition Man, and President Juan Peron in the original...
as Dean Walcott
- Frances Lee McCain
Frances Lee McCain , also known as Lee McCain, is an American actress.-Early life and education:McCain was born in York, Pennsylvania and grew up in New York, Illinois, Colorado and California. She graduated from Ripon College with a BA in Philosophy and then studied acting for 3 years at the...
as Judy
- Irma P. Hall
Irma P. Hall is an African American actress who has appeared in numerous films and television shows since the 1970s. She is best known for playing matriarchal figures the films A Family Thing, Soul Food and The Ladykillers....
as Joletta
- Josef Sommer
Josef Sommer is an American film actor.He was born Maximilian Josef Sommer in Greifswald, Germany and was raised in North Carolina, the son of Elisabeth and Clemons Sommer, a professor of art history at the University of North Carolina. He studied at the Carnegie Institute of Technology...
as Dr. Eaton
- Harold Gould
Harold V. Goldstein , best known by his stage name Harold Gould, was an American actor best known for playing Martin Morgenstern in the 1970s sitcoms Rhoda and The Mary Tyler Moore Show and as Miles Webber in The Golden Girls...
as Arthur Mendelson
- Harve Presnell
Harve Presnell was an American actor and singer. He began his career in the mid 1950s as a classical baritone, singing with orchestras and opera companies throughout the United States...
as Dean Anderson
- Michael Jeter
Michael Jeter was an American actor.- Early life :Michael Jeter was born in Lawrenceburg, Tennessee. His mother, Virginia , was a housewife...
as Rudy
- Barry Shabaka Henley
Barry Shabaka Henley is an American character actor. Henley is a fixture in many films, most often the films of director Michael Mann, having worked with the director four times....
as Emmet
- Richard Kiley as Dr. Titan
- Ryan Hurst
Ryan Douglas Hurst is an American actor who perhaps most notably starred as Gerry Bertier, an All-American linebacker in Disney's Remember the Titans and as Alison's brother, Michael, in the show Medium. He also played the role of football player Lump Hudson in The Ladykillers, appeared in the...
as Neil
- Peter Coyote
Peter Coyote is an American actor, author, director, screenwriter and narrator of films, theatre, television and audio books. His voice work includes narrating the opening ceremony of the 2002 Winter Olympics and Apple's iPad campaign. He has also served as on-camera co-host of the 2000 Oscar...
as Bill Davis
- Alan Tudyk
Alan Wray Tudyk is an American actor known for his roles as Simon in the British comedy Death at a Funeral, as Steve the Pirate in DodgeBall: A True Underdog Story, as Sonny in the science fiction drama I, Robot, as Doc Potter in 3:10 to Yuma, as Tucker in the Tucker & Dale vs Evil and as Hoban...
as Everton
Production notes
The film was shot in three locations:
Treasure IslandTreasure Island is an artificial island in the San Francisco Bay between San Francisco and Oakland, and an emerging neighborhood of San Francisco....
,
CaliforniaCalifornia is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
(near San Francisco), Asheville (
North CarolinaNorth Carolina is a state located in the southeastern United States. The state borders South Carolina and Georgia to the south, Tennessee to the west and Virginia to the north. North Carolina contains 100 counties. Its capital is Raleigh, and its largest city is Charlotte...
) and the
University of North Carolina at Chapel HillThe University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill is a public research university located in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, United States...
. A diner in
Point RichmondPoint Richmond, also sometimes referred to locally as The Point, is a neighborhood in Richmond, California, USA, near the eastern end of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, between Interstate 580 and the San Francisco Bay...
, (a district in
Richmond, CaliforniaRichmond is a city in western Contra Costa County, California, United States. The city was incorporated on August 7, 1905. It is located in the East Bay, part of the San Francisco Bay Area. It is a residential inner suburb of San Francisco, as well as the site of heavy industry, which has been...
) served as the University Diner. Several interior classroom scenes were filmed on the campus of
UC BerkeleyThe University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
.
The
producersA film producer oversees and delivers a film project to all relevant parties while preserving the integrity, voice and vision of the film. They will also often take on some financial risk by using their own money, especially during the pre-production period, before a film is fully financed.The...
worked very closely with the
Make-A-Wish FoundationThe Make-A-Wish Foundation is a 501 non-profit organization founded in the United States that grants wishes to children who have life-threatening medical conditions. The charity now operates in forty-seven countries around the world through thirty-six affiliate offices.The president & CEO of this...
. For this reason, all but two of the ill children acting in this film actually have
cancerCancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
.
The film has several major departures from Adam's real history. One is that the character of Carin is fictional, but is analogous to a real life friend of Adams (a man) who was murdered under similar circumstances. Another difference is the then-47 year old Robin Williams portrays Adams as enrolling in medical school very late in his life, his older age even being brought up in dialogue. In reality, Adams started medical school immediately and his educational progress was quite normal for a physician: He graduated high school at 18, college at 22, and medical school at 26.
Critical reception
The film received mostly negative reviews from critics. It currently has a score of 23% on
Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
, based on 55 reviews. The review aggregator
MetacriticMetacritic.com is a website that collates reviews of music albums, games, movies, TV shows and DVDs. For each product, a numerical score from each review is obtained and the total is averaged. An excerpt of each review is provided along with a hyperlink to the source. Three colour codes of Green,...
reported that the film averaged a rating of 25%.
Box office performance
The film was released on December 25, 1998 in the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
CanadaCanada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
and grossed $25.2 million in 2,712 theaters its opening weekend, ranking #1 at the box office. After its first weekend, it was the #2 film for four weeks.
The film grossed US$202,292,902 worldwide — $135,026,902 in the United States and Canada and $67,266,000 in other territories.
Awards
Despite such negative reviews, the film was nominated for an
Academy AwardAn Academy Award, also known as an Oscar, is an accolade bestowed by the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize excellence of professionals in the film industry, including directors, actors, and writers...
for
Best Music, Original Musical or Comedy ScoreThe Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
by
Marc ShaimanMarc Shaiman is an American composer, lyricist, arranger, and performer for films, television, and theatre. He is perhaps best known for writing the music and co-writing the lyrics for the Broadway musical version of the cult John Waters film Hairspray, for which Shaiman won Tony and Grammy...
.
The film was nominated for Best Picture and Best Actor (Robin Williams) Golden Globe awards in the Musical or Comedy categories.
Reaction of the real Patch Adams
Adams criticized the film, saying it sacrificed a lot of his message in order to make a movie that would sell. He said that out of all aspects of his life and activism, the film portrayed him merely as a funny doctor.
Patch Adams also said of Robin Williams, "He made $21 million for four months of pretending to be me, in a very simplistic version, and did not give $10 to my free hospital. Patch Adams, the person, would have, if I had Robin's money, given
all $21 million to a free hospital in a country where 80 million cannot get care." When film critic
Roger EbertRoger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
asked Adams his feelings about the film, Adams' first words to him were reportedly, "I hate that movie."
External links