Based
on the novel of the same title by Gene Brewer, the film K-PAX
is a psychological thriller directed by Iain Softley. All
of a sudden in the middle of Grand Central Station, a man
appears from nowhere. Seeing a woman whose handbag is being
taken from her, he goes to help her. When police arrive, they
ask the woman if the man is her robber. Although she says,
"No," they put the same question to the man, whose
answers indicate that he is "EDP," whereupon he
is whisked off to Bellevue and later committed to the Psychiatric
Institute of Manhattan, where he is admitted under the name
Prot (played by Kevin Spacey), a self-proclaimed visitor to
the plan earth from the planet K-PAX. His therapist, Dr. Mark
Powell (played by Jeff Bridges), gradually becomes fascinated
with Prot, who is extremely intelligent but seems to be haunted
by a frightening trauma repressed inside. The ward where Prot
is housed consists of an assortment of delusionals, who are
also fascinated by Prot’s tale that he comes from K-PAX,
especially when he reveals that on July 25, 2001, he will
return to K-PAX after a five-year stint on earth and that
he will take along one of the patients. Prot’s picture
of K-PAX is an anarchist’s utopia -- a planet 1,000 light-years
away where children are cared for by all adults, there are
no families, peace is universal, and there is no government
because everyone knows right from wrong, seemingly a description
of heaven except that he says that procreation is very painful.
Moreover, when Dr. Powell takes Prot to talk with professional
astronomers, they are amazed at Prot’s knowledge. Dr.
Powell, meanwhile, is having much less success in treating
his catatonic patients than is Prot, whose ideas about a bluebird
and K-PAX give them something to live for. As July 25 approaches,
Dr. Powell knows that something dreadful will happen, so he
decides to invite him to a July 4 party at his home in order
to find clues about his real identity. One clue is that Prot
says that nobody on K-PAX will have missed him during the
past five years, though he will be missed by many on earth
after he returns to his home planet. Desperate, Dr. Powell
tries hypnosis, and what emerges is a picture of a man who
worked in a slaughterhouse near a river. When Dr. Powell discovers
that stub of a pencil on Prot’s person bears area code
505, he puts the clues together. Flying to Guadalupe County,
New Mexico, Dr. Powell discovers that a person by the name
of Robert Porter came home from work on July 25, 1996, only
to discover an ex-con who had raped his wife and killed his
wife and daughter, whereupon Porter ripped the head off the
rapist and jumped into the nearby river, never to be seen
again. When Dr. Powell returns to confront Prot with the knowledge
that he is Robert Porter, Prot insists that he will be returning
to K-PAX during the next sunrise. When the film ends, Robert
Porter or Prot is under his bed, having become totally catatonic,
but one of the patients who wanted to go to K-PAX is missing.
Filmviewers leaving the cinema will then have to debate whether
the missing patient and Prot indeed went to K-PAX, leaving
the body of Robert Porter behind, or whether the entire K-PAX
story was a fabrication and the missing patient has simply
escaped. MH
I
want to comment on this film
