Awakenings

Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir of the same title. It illustrates the true story of British neurologist fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer, who had discovered some beneficial effects of the drug L-Dopa that may help the patients in the hospital. He administered it to one of a catatonic patient, Leonard Lowe who had survived from the epidemic of encephalitis lethargica after getting consent from the patient’s family. Leonard Lowe had awake from the disease and his successful case study had been proven to the others expertise that this drug may worked to all the other similar patients as well. After the long process of persuading the respective people, Dr. Syer managed to get the prescription to all the other patients. The miracles happened when all of the patients were awakened after decades of catatonia and have to deal with a new life in a new time. However, the story did not just end there. The effects of the drug can only be worked for a short period of time and soon later all the patients start experiencing the catatonic again and eventually reach the stage of catatonia. At this point of time, increasing the dosage of the drug is no longer effective to cure the patients. 

            This is my first watching this kind of true story that happen in the old days and did not end with a happy ending. It reminds me that in the reality that not everythings can end with a happy ending as there might be ups and downs in the life. As my dad told me before that there is no one life that can be as smooth as silk, there is always some obstacles in front that are waiting for us to overcome it. He said that people should not be afraid of failure and need to take failure into consideration as experience that we would not making the same mistake again. I believe that failure is the mother of success as it also did show in the movie that Dr. Sayer had tried several times in getting the right amount of the prescription before it worked out.  Without the several trials and the determination of Dr. Sayer, Leonard and the other patients may not be able to can be awake from the catatonia state.  From the movie, it had taught me that when there is a will, there is a way. No matter what happen, there is always way that we can solve the problem one day if we do not give up.

            Another main element that I had learnt from the movie is learn to appreciate and be grateful that we had.  The speech that Leonard Lowe had given to the hospital admins in having the freedom to come and go as he pleases had awake me some lessons that used to know. People always take things for granted and always complaint on things that they do not have; however, they do not know that everything that we are having is a gift and luck that we have compare to many others.  For example, people always think that able to achieve the physiological needs are just nothing and always seek for a higher standard and ignore it, however people do not know that this thing that we take for granted may be very important to someone who may not even be able to achieve these needs.  As a psychology student, it reminds me that depressed patients may think negative and commit suicide as they may have the thought that the world has not treated them fairly.  With the CBT, it may help them to recognise that they are not the worst cases in the world and there are always people who are currently in a more suffer stage from them but they did not give up, so do them? With the CBT, it can help the patients to create the new thought that being alive are something that are more precious as without live people are just nothing. 

            In the conclusion, I think that this movie did not just poke me up in teaching me some good life-learning lesson but also allows me to used what I learnt to help the people in need.  As helping people may also can be interpreted as blessing as well. Lastly, the lesson that I learnt from the movie may also help me in my future career, life coach in guiding the client to a better future.