Major problems face the viewer who watches this film in 2021, approaching 50 years after its release. Most prominent among those problems is the distraction factor that comes from having seen a great many of these actors in various other roles. You have to make an active effort to sink yourself into the time and place of this movie. When you lock in, you recognize that one of the key ingredients here is actually subtlety. If this film were made today, the strokes would be much broader; Nurse Ratched would be a Cruella-type villain and McMurphy would be a faultless hero. Neither applies to the presentation here; you can see both sides of this "argument" although ultimately, the movie's moral still comes through in the end. Another impression: it's entirely possible that Jack Nicholson has never played any character other than Jack Nicholson. I'm not sure what to make of that--just bringing it up here. All in all, this is a film worth seeing; not sure I would have made it Best Picture (though I don't have the perspective to compare it to all of its competition from that year), but this film's long-lasting influence has the ultimate say.
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