User Reviews

"Patients" is a French 2016 movie that runs for 110 minutes and as it is almost 2018 now, this one really took far too long to get here to Germany I must say. It is an awards-nominated movie that was a pretty good watch in my opinion and this came a bit surprising as the writers and directors here are the exact opposite of experienced. But all in all, they did a fine job. The film never dragged much and for movies closer to 2 hours than to 90 minutes, this is definitely always a success. The cast members were unknown to me in its entirety and this includes lead actor Pablo Pauly as well as the rest here. Maybe French audiences will recognize a face here and there, but I did not. Diversity plays a big role in this one. It is the story of a young man, an aspiring basketball player who has a terrible accident that destroys his health as well as a great deal of his future ambitions. However, there is also a lot positive there as he meets some guys (and a girl) in similar situations like him and makes friends with them. The drama component (even in a tragic fashion at times) is omnipresent in here, but there are enough moments of (situational) comedy that keep this from becoming a too depressing watch. The main character's own approach to his situation is also overwhelmingly humurous if we ignore the struggles after the talk with the female doctor who's the boss there or something. So I would say that the lighter parts here are better overall than the dramatic parts. Especially towards the end they are exaggerating it a bit with how he falls out of the female nurse's arms, the death of a friend, two (previous) suicide attempts, the farewell scene etc. It struggles a bit with realism there perhaps. What I did like, however, was the very final shot again in the protagonist's face starring right at us as we accompanied him on his long journey that is of course still far from over. I also think it was a good idea to make the decision to not include a happy ending romantically, even if we of course don't know how it goes on. It is more about healing yourself physically and emotionally before you are really 100% ready for somebody else, even if of course you never know the extent of romance that may be going on between these two after the film.

Let me add that almost every supporting character here down to the ones who had almost no screen time and only appeared in one scene or so added something interesting to the film. This was also needed though as the locations are repetitive as expected as 99% of the film play inside or outside a rehabilitation center. And they did a good job. The one male nurse who keeps saying "he" instead of "you" was a riot of course and made for some of the film's most hilarious and entertaining moments. I would say that this movie is surely a bit on the underseen side as a whole. It deserves more attention. If you liked it, let me recommend you the German "4 Könige", another film dealing with broken young people (even if they are broken more on the inside than on the outside compared to the characters here) that has some parallels to this one we got here. All in all, greatness was reached not that often all in all, but there are also not too many moments when I felt underwhelmed by particular scenes and it was easy to care for the inmates without you having to be in similar situations like them. At least I hope for your own sake you are not, but still if you are, then you will probably like this one even more as the connection between you and these people may be even stronger. This was a good watch. They also used at least 2 amazing songs that I liked a lot. Check it out if you get the chance to.