The producers of this heartily maudlin character study must have paid a fortune in use fees for its flood of Sixties-era ditties. The tunes come in as part of the therapy for Gabriel (Lou Taylor Pucci), a long-lost former musician and flower child whose brain tumor has caused him to lose near-term memory – he still thinks it’s 1968, and grooves heavily to the Grateful Dead. The drama, adapted by Gwyn Lurie and Larry Marks from a case study, “The Last Hippie,” by Oliver Sacks (
Awakenings), pits actor Pucci against a squad of helpers, including Julia Ormond as a kindly therapist and J.K. Simmons and Cara Seymour as Gabe’s parents, who unfortunately re-experience the Sixties themselves. Sort of a crash course in Boomerology, produced and directed by Jim Kohlberg. (105 min.)
By
Kelly Vance