Review of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) by Simon H — 28 Jun 2014

An emotional yet surprising drama, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Next is a well written piece of cinema. With the majority of the film confined to the mental institution, you get a real feel of what the characters go through. Each character has their own personalities and the camera will often linger on their facial features to give you a sense of the emotions going through them. The patients come across as such nice people, that you find yourself rooting for them, even when they break the rules.

Naturally the script only creates half the characters. The other half is brought to life by the actors cast in the roles. As one of his more familiar characters, Jack Nicholson is such fun to watch and really entertains you in every scene he features in. There are also some welcomes additions to the supporting characters with Christopher Lloyd and Danny DeVito popping up in early film roles. However, the shining star in my opinion is Brad Dourif. His performance for his debut role is fantastic and really deserves the Oscar nomination he received.

Jumping straight into the story without any worry of waiting for it to build up, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest is a fantastic movie thanks to the well written script and choice of actors.