Subject: REVIEW: PHENOMENON (1996)

From: [email-masked] (Ram Samudrala)
Date: 23 Jul 1996 15:21:47 GMT

PHENOMENON
                       A film review by Ram Samudrala
                        Copyright 1996 Ram Samudrala

When John Travolta compares pencils and humans saying that they're all
made up of the same stuff, it's not Einstein's relation that came to
mind.  Rather, the images of Operating Thetans as described in the
teachings of the Cult of Scientology (of which Travolta is a member)
are invoked.  The isomorphisms between the CoS teachings and some of
the themes in /Phenomenon/ are a bit disconcerting, but I digress.

/Phenomenon/ is a film about a simple man, George Malley (John
Travolta) who begins to see life in a new way after a bizarre
experience on his 37th birthday.  In a way, Malley is reborn as a man
who has an insatiable thirst for knowledge.  Slowly his capacity for
understanding things that were previously beyond his grasp grows.  He
then begins to grapple with understanding that which has been beyond
understanding.  However, he has no outlet for his new found
knowledge.  He is not college educated.  The academic world does not
take him seriously.  Even the government, when they find out about his
special abilities, feels threatened by him.

Everything around him changes.  The other members of his small
California community begin to whisper behind his back.  His "friends"
question who the new George Malley is.  The only ones who embrace
Malley as he is are the woman he has a crush on, Lace Pennamin (Kyra
Sedgwick), his best friend, Nate Pope (Forest Whitaker), and the town
doctor/father figure played by Robert Duvall.

The performances are generally brilliant, but lay it on a bit thick at
times.  The plot has been compared to /Forrest Gump/, but I think it
is an incongruous comparison.  While Gump made a virtue of being
stupid, Malley makes a virtue of being brilliant.  Ultimately he is
ostracised for being so, and therein lies the moral in this movie.

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