MOVIEWEB: Patch Adams

The Film - "Patch Adams."

robin as patch

Universal Pictures
Release Date: December 25, 1998

Running Time: 115 minutes



Laughter is contagious.

Academy Award - winner Robin Williams stars in Universal Pictures' Patch Adams, a comedy with heart based on the true story of a compassionate but outrageous medical student who risks his career by defying the medical profession with his unwavering belief that laughter is contagious.

After such career highlights as Good Morning Vietnam, Dead Poets Society, Awakenings, The Fisher King, Mrs. Doubtfire and his Oscar - winning supporting turn in last year's Good Will Hunting, the highly versatile star racks up another milestone as he takes on an inspiring and colorful real-life character whose reputation for zany, humorous antics rivals his own.

Hunter 'Patch' Adams was criticized in his official medical school record for "excessive happiness" and was once told by a faculty advisor, "If you want to be a clown, join the circus."

Patch did, in fact, want to be a clown.
But he also wanted to be a physician.
Combining vastly different sides of his personality, he became both.
Patch's remarkable story, which includes having been a patient and a doctor at a mental institute, celebrates the triumph of spirited individualism and the unending pursuit of idealism.

Inspired to become a doctor while institutionalized for depression as a teenager, Patch Adams attended the Medical College of Virginia in the late '60s and early '70s.

After graduation, he formed the Gesundheit!-Institute, dedicated to a more connected, personalized approach to medicine.

Having initially resisted public attention, he began receiving a flurry of media coverage about his unorthodox clinic in the mid-80s and eventually wrote a book about his work in 1993.

In it, Adams explains his humor-driven prescriptions and why he's willing to dress like a gorilla, fill a room full of balloons or tub full of noodles to elicit a smile, a spiritual connection or simple moment of pleasure from a patient.

Using unconventional methods and wacky surprises to ease patients' anxiety and enhance their healing, Patch helped pioneer the then-startling idea that doctors should treat people, not just disease.

Compassion, involvement and empathy, Patch holds, are as great a value to physicians as breakthrough medicines and technological advancements. Radical thinking, then and now.

As depicted in the film, few others initially share Patch's philosophy.

The University's Dean Walcott staunchly opposes his methods, while Patch's roommate Mitch (Philip Seymour Hoffman) considers him to be no more than a childish goof.

patch different Patch's enthusiasm does become infectious to a few, including nurse Joletta (Irma P. Hall), who looks the other way when Patch makes his unauthorized rounds, and fellow students Truman (Daniel London) and Carin (Monica Potter).

robin + monica Carin presents a greater challenge to Patch, at least initially, as she finds fault with his in-your-face candor and insistence on eliminating 'professional distance' between doctor and patient.

Though continuing to ruffle administrative feathers, Patch finds his niche in the children's ward, where his funny, outrageous style helps break through youngsters' fears.

Fighting conventional wisdom, allowing himself to be vulnerable, and embracing the idea that service of others is the best way to combat your own problems, Patch Adams begins to reach people. Though alienating some and astounding many, he who sees the effectiveness of Patch's style when he reaches the end of his own rope.

The realization, and the continuing pursuit, of Patch's dream is the Gesundheit Institute, a picturesque clinic where each patient meets not only a doctor, but a friend.

The Main Cast.

Patch Adams............................. ROBIN WILLIAMS
Carin.................................. .MONICA POTTER
Truman.................................. DANIEL LONDON
Mitch................................... PHILIP SEYMOUR HOFFMAN
Dean Walcott............................ BOB GUNTON
Bill Davis.............................. PETER COYOTE

Directed by............................. TOM SHADYAC
Friendship as Therapy. homepage. Patch Adams.
Patch Adams Interview. Patch Adams in Germany.