David and Lisa

"David and Lisa" is a beautifully updated version of this love story by Theodore Isaac Rubin. It shows careful research into modern psychiatry.

This may have come about under the aegis of Oprah Winfrey, but don't let that put you off; "David and Lisa" is far more watchable than her self-titled opus. (Another British viewer complained that She Who Thinks She's God appears in an intro before the movie starts; this is the case on video and on its US screenings, but I watched the movie on BBC2 and her appearance was removed, for which much thanks. Less justifiably, the Harpo logo was also absent - I don't like Oprah, but I like end credits.)

Though Sidney Poitier is top-billed, Lukas Haas is the real star of the movie; he plays an articulate and intelligent young man who's very disturbed - he suffers from a recurring nightmare involving "clock executions," and has a severe phobia about being touched, all of which accounts for his widowed mother (Allison Janney from "The West Wing") sending him to a special institution.

This movie is basically a love story, and the object of his affections - though it takes him a while to realise it - is a fellow patient played by Brittany Murphy (anyone seeing this after "Girl, Interrupted" and "Don't Say A Word" will probably not be surprised). Given to speaking in rhyme to make her internal demons go away, his interest is at first clinical, but eventually...

Compared to "The Bell Jar" (the book, that is - I haven't seen the movie version), this isn't particularly wrenching, but it isn't meant to be. Blessedly non-sick-making, sensitively told and generally well-performed (some of the freakouts may seem overacted, but how far is too far in cases like this?), "David and Lisa" is an involving story right up to its final scene - there's no real miracle cure, instead a suggestion that they're heading in the right direction. (And unusually for a love story, the two never kiss.)

And to the person who complained about Marco Beltrami's music; in addition to being above-average for TV, it must have been a refreshing change for him to score a movie not about serial killings. Fans of him (and Haas and Murphy) should tune in.

This is a very nice movie about two teens in a mental institution. David (played by Lucas Haas) is afraid to be touched by other people, and Lisa (brilliantly played by Brittany Murphy) says everything in rhymes, and seems to have a split personality. The two become friends, and unconsciously help each others overcome their fears... Also with Sidney Poitier as the head of the mental institution.

If you like this film, maybe you also like "Her last chance" with Kellie Martin! Rating: 9/10

The second I saw the article in the Sunday paper about this film, I knew it was going to be a keeper. Unable to watch it as it was aired (and, after all, I like to tape everything anyway just in case) I saw it the following day. It's truly beautiful. I was in tears when David lets 'Lisa' hold his hand. It's touching, and just crazy enough for us 'artsy' types. *smile* Get a hold of a copy of it somehow. You've got to. Really, truly watch it. Listen to the dialogue. Watch the actor's eyes. Keep tissues handy for the end.

In hindsight, the death of Sidney Poitier's film career probably began in 1989 with "Driving Miss Daisy". A huge "sleeper" hit for Morgan Freeman, which he capitalised on with later roles in "The Shawshank Redemption" and "Se7en".

As a result, the rare role of "elderly black man" in cinema (matched for obscurity only by the roles of Asian or disabled actors in Hollywood circles) has fallen in favour of Freeman. Not that that's a bad thing, Morgan is a fine actor, but to waste one of the major talents of the cinema (one of the fifty greatest film actors of all time? Twenty? Ten?) on tv movies is a sad waste. Sidney has starred in just eleven films in the last two decades, only five of them for the big screen.

And so, being a huge Poitier fan I rented out "David and Lisa", a love story between two patients at a home for the mentally ill. Lukas Haas and Brittany Murphy do well as the titular characters, while Sidney is, as expected, the greatest performer in the piece.

Yet while Haas gets to do all the real "acting", Sidney is required here to do nothing more than go through the motions, with no material to get his teeth into. Instead, he is called upon to deliver such saccharine lines as "If you don't fall in love with life then you are more dead than alive". His attempts to wade through what is essentially a treacly, self-consciously "heart-warming" story are blighted at every turn. His swift body language and familiar-yet-well-mannered facial array are slowed by the sentimental incidental music that punctuates any "touching" plot development.

For a film that professes to be about mental illness, it can be occasionally sloppy in it's presentation of said theme. The movie is guilty of perpetuating the widely-held myth that "Schizophrenia" refers to multiple personality disorders, while the notion of illnesses than can be cured by love is just too easy an option for a satisfactory resolution.

Ultimately, this is not a bad film, but then neither is it a particularly good one. I gave it average (5) marks, as, like the majority of tv movies, it is a sanitised work, content to sit there and occupy the attention for 85 minutes then go away again leaving no real lasting impression. It's not horrible, it's not bad for your health, but then neither will it alter your life in any great way. The film's undercurrent is the sort of self-aggrandising, pious worthiness that gives liberalism a bad name. In fact, the whole movie walks a tightrope between decent entertainment and preachy sentiment. The only thing it needs to take it over the edge into a swarfegic glob of overstated emotion is a introduction by Oprah Winfrey, where she talks about the film being a "timeless love story" and "love gives us the power to live".

Oh, wait a minute. She does do that, doesn't she? Damn.