Summary:

In dire financial straits, the physician-researcher, Dr. Malcolm Sayres (Robin Williams), accepts a clinical job for which he is decidedly unsuited: staff physician in a chronic-care hospital. His charges include the severely damaged, rigid, and inarticulate victims of an epidemic of encephalitis lethargica. Sayres makes a connection between their symptoms and Parkinson’s disease. With the hard-won blessing of his skeptical supervisor, he conducts a therapeutic trial using the new anti-Parkinson drug, L-Dopa.

The first patient to "awaken" is Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro) who, despite being "away" for many years, proves to be a natural leader, with a philosophical mind of his own. Other patients soon display marked improvement and their stories are told in an aura of fund-raising celebration marked by happy excursions.

Gradually, however, problems develop: patients have trouble adapting to the radical changes in themselves and the world; Leonard grows angry with the imperfection of his rehabilitation; the horrifying side effects of L-Dopa appear; and Leonard’s mother (Ruth Nelson), initially happy for her son’s recovery, is later alienated by the concomitant arousal of his individuality, sexuality, and independence. The film ends with "closure of the therapeutic window" and marked regression in some patients, but not before they have awakened clinical commitment and a new ability to express feelings in their shy doctor.

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Summary:

During the opening credits, the camera slowly pans over the myriad medications for Marvin (Hume Cronyn), the elderly, bedridden invalid cared for round-the-clock by his daughter, Bessie (Diane Keaton). The film opens with Bessie visiting Dr. Wally (Robert DeNiro), a pathologist cum primary care physician, for diagnostic tests which show that she has leukemia.

Bessie also takes care of her Aunt Ruth, whose electric unit for pain relief and penchant for soap operas provide comic relief in this bittersweet drama about families and responsibilities. Because Bessie's best chance for survival is a bone marrow transplant, she contacts her sister, Lee (Meryl Streep), estranged since their father's first stroke and Lee's decision not to help care for him.

Lee's oldest son, Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), is a troubled seventeen-year-old who sets fire to their home and is hospitalized in a mental institution. Released for this special trip to visit his Aunt Bessie, Hank continues his rebellion by refusing to be tested as a possible donor. Lee is a dysfunctional mother: she does not respond to her son's apology regarding the arson, she has her younger son light cigarettes, and she confuses discipline with control.

The family unites in and around Marvin's room. Reunions are never as smooth as planned, and tensions, stored bitterness, and anger erupt. The sisters confront each other in their failures as sisters--Bessie had never contacted her nephews in any way and Lee had never looked back. But through it all, love and caring emerge: the sisters come to a new understanding, Bessie's reaching out to rebellious Hank is reciprocated, and Lee even learns to communicate caring to her son.

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Summary:

Walt Koontz (Robert De Niro) is a retired security officer, cited for his heroism, and now living alone in an unsavory apartment building on Manhattan's Lower East Side. He regards his neighbors with contempt, especially the "faggot" upstairs, Busty Rusty, (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a transvestite and singer/piano player at a popular drag club. During a drug-related shoot-out with an upstairs neighbor, Walt attempts to help, but suffers a stroke that leaves him with paralysis of his right side and significant speech impairment. Walt's status as hero is radically changed. His friends become awkward around him.

Walt refuses to leave the apartment building for treatment. His doctor (Mahdur Jaffrey) recommends singing lessons to improve his speech. Walt reluctantly seeks help from Rusty. The relationship between a bigot and a drag queen is an unlikely one that begins with mutual loathing and considerable stereotyping on both sides. Eventually each is forced to renegotiate his own prejudices.

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