Awakenings

“There is no such thing as a simple miracle.”

In 1969, neurologist Malcolm Sayer (Robin Williams) arrives at a Bronx hospital to find a ward of catatonic patients frozen in place for decades. He discovers an experimental drug that might wake them, and Leonard Lowe (Robert De Niro) becomes his first success. Penny Marshall frames each small recovery as a miracle, then lets us sit with what it costs when the body begins to fail the newly awakened mind.