Blu-ray Reviewed HERE

Strangely enough, Ralph Nelson's "Charly" succeeds as a movie for reasons having little to do with the plot. As the story of a personality in crisis, it works. We care about Charly. But the whole scientific hocus-pocus, which causes his crisis, is irrelevant and weakens the movie by distracting us.

The story idea is a simple one, which Daniel Keyes was able to spin out into a successful novel ("Flowers for Algernon") by keeping his focus on Charly's, developing character. We start with a good-natured mentally retarded man of perhaps 30. He can do simple tasks and write a few words.

He cheerfully inhabits a world that seems frightening to us. His barren room contains a blackboard with the next day's tasks on it; he works as a janitor at a bakery where his "friends" torment him. With heartbreaking persistence, he attends night classes and takes guided tours of the city, but the things he learns all slip away and he has to keep starting again.

Then Charly undergoes a brain operation (which remains unconvincing despite a surplus of fishy explanations). His IQ begins to increase rapidly, and he has to do 20 years of maturing in a few months. His tutor along the way is a young teacher, and not surprisingly he falls in love with her.

Excerpt from Roger Ebert's review at the Chicago Sun-Times located HERE