Acensbart Excellent but underrated film

Console best movie i've ever seen.

ThedevilChoose When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

Nayan Gough A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

rrrbunny Trying not to give many spoilers, I will say that I have a lot of mixed feelings about this movie. When I first watched it I thought of giving it a 3 out of 10 - maybe a 4 out of 10. However, when I actually think about it, this movie was pretty darn awful. The acting wasn't bad at all, in fact I found Cliff Robertson's performance to be quite good. Unfortunately, this did not make up for how terrible this movie was. I especially hated how there were these weird parts that would come out from no where. You can tell there were some deleted scenes and because of this, some parts had a very terrible and slightly confusing transition. Another problem I had with this movie was the perverted twist that it had. The story was not nearly this bad and did not have the same tone as the movie - which is great because the story is actually pretty good. The end of the story is a rather sad part, however I find that the movie has a terrible ending. The ending of the movie seems very rushed, and does not invoke any emotion whatsoever (in my opinion). For these reasons, I give this movie a 1 out of 10 and do not recommend this movie at all, for it is a waste of time.

random_avenger A mentally challenged man named Charly (Cliff Robertson) desires to become smarter so that he wouldn't always be picked on by his so-called friends at his workplace. However, he has made no progress despite his efforts of going to school. One day he gets a chance to undergo some experimental brain surgery and his intelligence skyrockets, making him a genius. Still, he cannot stop feeling like an outsider or find happiness with Alice, the woman he loves (Claire Bloom).The director uses many split screens and other alienating techniques to portray the fragile mental state of Charly; at points they get rather annoying and look dated. The montage near the end, depicting the progression of Charly and Alice's relationship, comes across as rather hasty, considering the scene directly preceding it. Mostly the story advances fine though, and the pondering about the surgery's effects on Charly's psyche is interesting – there should have been more of it, actually. Robertson's Oscar-winning performance in the lead role is decent, although I preferred his calm 'intelligent Charly' to his naïve 'challenged Charly'.

waynepenner "I want to be smarter, just so I could get a little closer, you know?" Charly GordonMade in the days when doctors smoked cigarettes, this is Cliff Robertson's brilliant portrayal of a man isolated from society by an IQ of 69 who through a brain operation becomes a genius.Robertson won a well-deserved Oscar for Best Actor in 1968 for his part in this wonderful and inspiring film, and it's a great movie, albeit on a "b-movie" budget. But entwined in its message is a dark reflection on how society treats people who are mentally handicapped.Charly is the nicest guy you would ever meet, considerate of all, kind, but simple and naïve. Everyone around him either laughs at him or is condescending toward him. No one sees him as a man, not even a human being, just whatever they label him as - "dumb-assed janitor", or just plain "moron". Then he gets his operation and becomes the smartest man on Earth, but still he is labeled, and still he is isolated.What I got most from this film is not a clinical study of mental retardation but the way society deals with mental retardation, and in this the film soars, and it will bring a tear or two if you have even a bit of humanity. It is a wonderful film, on many levels, testing us all on how we deal with those who are so unfortunate as to be mentally handicapped.In "Charly", society doesn't win in the end, but the movie does! 9 out of 10.

nycritic CHARLY is an interesting movie to watch because its premise is the antithesis of the premise in ETERNAL SUNSHINE OF THE SPOTLESS MIND. Where in Michael Gondry's movie, Carrey undergoes a traumatic experiment where he erases his mind to get rid of the memory of his great love, Cliff Robertson, playing Charly Gordon, a mentally disabled man who works in menial labor, gets a major life change: an experiment to elevate his mental activity. While you may not see the parallels in both movies, I could.Both processes are, essentially, brain damage. One of them causes terminal amnesia and even then it's not guaranteed because the two lovers -- Carrey and Winslet -- gravitate towards each other as if they were meeting for the first time. Charly's is a breakthrough: it opens the doors of not only his perception of the world and his placement in it, but to his heart because he is able to express his love for Alice Kinian, the woman who has been the link between him and the world of intelligence. The problem being that his newfound intelligence is temporary.CHARLY as a movie feels of its time and much of the visual exposition -- split scenes, bright colors, and inserts -- are purely late Sixties. There is even a psychedelic romp that Charly indulges in that seems to be a precursor to EASY RIDER at some point, and his walk in the woods with Alice all but evokes the folksy music of soft rock bands like Bread. However, the science fiction aspect of the story is able to transplant it to any other time frame despite the fashions and the overall look: it could happen today with the advance of science-fact. The one point where the movie falls short of being excellent is at the moment when Charly is told that he'll revert back to his former self. True, we're given glimpses here and there, but there is a much too abrupt ending that shows him back at a child's state, still dressed as a man, playing with children on a see-saw. I guess the people involved in the production thought it would have been too much for the movie-going public of 1968 to see Charly suffer the effects of his regression, leaving the movie with that one scene in which he tells Alice to leave him alone, followed by the closing playground scene.Even so, CHARLY is full of beautiful, understated acting. Cliff Robertson is detailed in his characters idiocy, not making Charly a one-note object of pity but a human being who is loved by his co-workers. He evolves into a man full of this frightening intelligence who becomes the thermometer of the way the world is heading, going so far as to denounce the state of the cold war and America's complacent society which echoes FAHRENHEIT 451 when he addresses that education comes from television. Claire Bloom has a role that could be thankless but isn't -- as Alice, she has a lovely, sensitive presence that complements Robertson's completely.