Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (December 29, 2025)
After a successful career as a sitcom actor on The Odd Couple and Laverne and Shirley, Penny Marshall broadened into film direction via 1986’s Jumpin’ Jack Flash and then 1988’s major hit Big. Those two fell into the range of comedies, but Marshall went for something more serious with her third flick, 1990’s Awakenings.
In 1969, Dr. Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) gets a new job as a clinical physician at a hospital in New York. A researcher, he lacks “people skills” but that becomes less of an issue because he ends up with patients in perpetual semi-catatonic states.
When he sees sporadic signs of consciousness from these folks, Dr. Sayer gets permission to use an experimental drug to see if this will rouse them. After 30 years, this works on 41-year-old Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro), and Dr. Sayer concentrates on him to see what this can mean for the others.
As I noted at the start, Marshall spent most of her career in comedy. No one expected much from Big, especially since it existed as a variation on the “body swap” genre.
The late 1980s boasted a bunch of films under that domain, and none of the others made much of a dent. However, not only did Big make a then-sizable $114 million in the US – good enough for fourth place at the year’s box office – but also it snared two Academy Award nominations.
Did Marshall make the move from comedy to more serious fare with Awakenings to chase Oscar gold? I can’t help but think yes, as it becomes the only pure drama in her directorial filmography.
This kind of worked, as Awakenings earned three Oscar nominations, including the coveted Best Picture nod that eluded Big. However, it won none and did mediocre box office business, which probably explains why Marshall went back to comedy with 1992’s A League of Their Own.
I admit that when Awakenings arrived, I couldn’t help but think it smelled like Eau de Oscar Bait. Not only did it show a turn toward
“serious fare” from Marshall but also it put Williams in another dramatic role to shoot for the Best Actor trophy that eluded him for his nominated parts in 1987’s Good Morning, Vietnam and 1989’s Dead Poets Society.
This didn’t work, as Williams failed to even score a nomination for Awakenings. De Niro did enjoy a Best Actor nod, his first since he took home the big prize for 1980’s Raging Bull.
As much as I suspect Williams felt “thirsty” for an Oscar, De Niro might’ve been just as eager. After all, a decade between nominations for the man then viewed as the greatest male movie actor alive seemed like an eternity, and Leonard offered the kind of unusual role that the Academy loved.
After all, Dustin Hoffman won an Oscar only two years earlier for his own neurologically different character in 1988’s Rain Man. De Niro probably got a look at that and figured he’d milk the showy Awakenings part for Academy Award glory.
Truth to tell, Williams boasts the stronger performance of the two leads. I suspect the Oscars ignored him because they didn’t want to pit two actors from the same movie against each other so Robin got the shaft.
Honestly, I suspect it’s just De Niro’s star value that got him the Best Actor category, as Leonard really exists as a supporting role. De Niro doesn’t even appear until 20 minutes into the movie, and Leonard fails to become an active participant in the tale until more than 48 minutes into it.
Because Williams embraced sanctimonious roles in films like the nauseating Patch Adams late in the 1990s, I sometimes forget what a good actor he could be. When he reined in the smugness evident in Adams, he worked well, and that becomes the case here.
On occasion, Williams lets out his Internal Comic a little too much and behaves in ways that don’t really make sense. For instance, when he speaks with a researcher about the effects of disorder on the now-catatonic patients, he acts out their decline in a symbolic way that feels far too showy for the conservative and staid Dr. Sayer.
Still, Williams largely plays the role straight and he brings warmth and heart to the part. He manages to bring out honesty and avoids temptations to overplay situations.
Dr. Sayer really does exist as the movie’s sole main character, and that contributes to my belief that De Niro got nominated under Best Actor and not Best Supporting Actor just because of his fame. In no way, shape or form can we view Leonard as a true lead.
Like I mentioned, grown-up Leonard does virtually nothing but remain still for about 40 percent of the movie’s length. Obviously De Niro gets more to do the rest of the way, and because Awakenings traces Leonard’s path from child-like man to more “normal” adult, he gets a broader arc than does Dr. Sayer.
While Dr. Sayer does enjoy some changes, he doesn’t really become a different person, whereas Leonard obviously follows a much broader path. I wish I could say De Niro pulls this off well but instead, he feels forced a lot of the time.
Just as Hoffman created a cartoon character with Raymond from Raun Man, De Niro does the same with Leonard. Given that Leonard “froze in time” as an adolescent, De Niro needs to play a kid in a man’s body ala Tom Hanks in Big.
Except Hanks did it much better. De Niro overplays the part and rarely seems like a convincing human.
Even beyond De Niro’s showboat performance, Awakenings falters in its second half because it broadens its scope beyond Leonard too much of the time. As Dr. Sayer works with other patients, we lose focus of Leonard too often.
In a better constructed film, we’d stick with Dr. Sayer and Leonard the vast majority of the time. Because the tale follows that arc in its first half, that becomes the more effective segment.
Once the character list expands to a whole bunch of other patients, though, the movie loses too much focus. The story simply lacks breathing room to embrace all these roles in a sufficient manner, and we lose track of Leonard too much of the time.
Awakenings does always remain reasonably involving, and I like that it doesn’t attempt to tack on a phony happy ending. Nonetheless, it feels too spotty to become a genuinely strong film.
