Cast: Kevin Spacey, Jeff Bridges, Mary McCormack, Alfre Woodard, Brian Howe
Director: Iain Softley
Producers: Lawrence Gordon, Lloyd Levin
Screenplay: Charles Leavitt, based on the novel by Gene Brewer
Cinematography: John Mathieson
Music: Ed Shearmur
U.S. Distributor: Universal Pictures
In order to be effective, some motion pictures (more than others) require their audiences to engage in a behavior which is often referred to as the "willing suspension of disbelief". For a movie like K-PAX to work, not only is a suspension of disbelief necessary, but an abandonment of cynicism, as well. Because the movie tends towards melodrama, more hardened viewers may tune out without bothering to look beneath K-PAX's surface to discover that there are some interesting themes and issues lurking there. The premise, although not original, is intriguing, and the overall impact is helped immeasurably by the competent performances of lead actors Kevin Spacey and Jeff Bridges. Even considering its flaws (one of which is an overlong running length), K-PAX offers a worthwhile couple of hours spent in a darkened theater.
Based on a novel by Gene Brewer, K-PAX uses the same basic premise as that of the 1986 Argentinean film Man Looking Southeast. (According to director Iain Softley, this is not a re-make.) Prot (Spacey) is the newest patient to be admitted to the Psychiatric Institute of Manhattan. He's a gentle, intelligent man who seems abnormally sane and lucid until he starts talking about his origins. According to Prot, he's not a resident of Earth, but merely a visitor. He hails from the planet of K-PAX, located 1000 light years away in the constellation of Lyra. He traveled here on a beam of light with the intention of investigating the population of a "BA-3 planet" - a world in the early stages of evolution with an uncertain future. His doctor is Mark Powell (Bridges), the Chief of Clinical Psychiatry. Of course, Mark doesn't believe that Prot is from K-PAX, but he acknowledges that the man's delusions are more detailed than usual, and he is at a loss to explain how the patient knows things about star systems that only a few eminent astronomers are aware of and how he can make calculations on paper that those same scientists require a computer for. Instead, he believes that Prot has fashioned a fantasy cocoon as a result of a traumatic event in his life, and it's up to Mark to ferret out the truth of what happened.
Thematically, the movie is concerned with the importance of families and human contact in everyday existence. Mark is a workaholic who often neglects his wife (Mary McCormack) and children in favor of his latest patient. Working on Prot's case, however, Mark begins to realize how desolate it can be for a person to be alone in the universe, with no family or friends to turn to. When Mark makes an offhand comment about accompanying Prot back to K-PAX, Prot responds that he should explore more of his own planet first. (Although Prot's final "sermon" comes across as trite.)
Of course, the mystery at the core of K-PAX is whether Prot is really an alien sojourning for a time in our corner of the galaxy or whether he's a man with a deeply troubled past. The film's least credible scenes occur when Mark imitates Sherlock Holmes in a bout of amateur sleuthing. More effective are the instances of human interaction between the patient and his doctor, Mark and his family, and Prot and the other inmates in the psychiatric ward. In the end, the truth about Prot isn't revealed in an unambiguous way, although the viewer can make a few deductions. This is one thing I appreciated about K-PAX: it doesn't insult our intelligence by wrapping everything up into a neat little package topped with ribbon and a bow. There is some "wiggle room" for varying interpretations.
For British director Iain Softley, this is a much different project from his previous venture, The Wings of the Dove. Here, he has crafted a modern day fable with an unusual fish out of water as the protagonist. To claim that K-PAX is allegorical is to state the obvious - it doesn't take a religious scholar, for example, to see similarities between Prot and Jesus. And, as is often the case in both mythology and modern fiction, it takes a non-human (or at least someone who claims not to be human) to reveal truths about the human condition. Prot represents something a little different to everyone who knows him: patient, friend, savior, simpleton, genius. With versatile character actor Kevin Spacey playing the part, there's never any difficulty accepting Prot as any of these things. Meannwhile, Softley presents the film in a straightforward, unsentimental manner that avoids the insidious trap of mawkishness. (Imagine what a horror Frank Marshall could have created from the same script!) Thus, K-PAX manages to intrigue without overplotting and uplift without overmanipulating. K-PAX may not be out of this world, but it's certainly at a higher level than a lot of what we've been seeing in multiplexes in recent months.
© 2001 James Berardinelli