They all can’t be winners, and Arnaud Desplechin‘s Jimmy P. would seem to have the material to make a good film, but my god, as we watch the film’s title character go through two hours of therapy we begin to feel as if we are the ones locked in a mental ward, waiting for the credits to roll so we know when we can finally break out.
Set during the end of the second World War, the film is based on George Devereux’s non-fiction book “Reality and Dream: Psychotherapy of a Plains Indian” and we are introduced to Jimmy Picard (Benicio Del Toro), a Native American soldier who suffered a head trauma in the war who is now troubled by an inexplicable illness that’s causing painful headaches and temporary blindness. Taken to a military hospital by his sister (Misty Upham), he eventually falls under the care of Georges Devereux (Mathieu Amalric), who is given one hour a day to treat him and we are “treated” to snippets of what feels like every single one of those hours.
Del Toro plays Jimmy as if he is slow-witted, but I never got the impression we were to think of him this way. He delivers his words in short, staccato bursts as if he is eight years old and it’s a maddening exercise in patience considering so much of the film is dedicated to listening to Jimmy and Georges’ conversations.
When the two aren’t talking the scene typically shifts to Georges’ quarters where Madeleine (Gina McKee), a married friend of his, arrives and spends a considerable amount of time with him. You’d think her character would have some major bearing on the story, but for all I could tell she was there as a distraction to break up the film so it wasn’t one therapy session after another. Instead it becomes one therapy session after another, broken up only by moments between Georges and Madeleine either talking about the therapy sessions or random nonsense that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the film we’re watching.
I soon began to wonder just who or what this film was about. Georges was obviously excited when he got the call to come work with Jimmy and he was on the first train out of New York and as excited as anyone could be to be heading to Topeka. Yet, the film is titled Jimmy P. and he’s the patient, the one in trouble and the one with the story we are about to slowly peel away over the course of the next two hours.
I got the impression Desplechin wanted this to be his The King’s Speech and for us to become captivated by the relationship between Jimmy and Georges. Both have changed their names to fit in better in society, Jimmy dropping his Native American name and Georges dropping his Jewish name, György Dobó. When the two first met, it appeared Georges had a fever. The focus on Georges’ sickness made it seem like we were supposed to draw a comparison between his sickness and Jimmy’s only to later learn Georges was just sick and got over it. If there was any further commonality I didn’t see it and I didn’t necessarily see a friendship blossoming.
Everything this film presented was made to feel as if it was important and would ultimately have something to do with how it all comes together, but in the end it’s just a film about a doctor and his patient. Jimmy’s story is interesting, but this clinical approach to the story was not the way it should have been told.
As I’ve already alluded to, Del Toro’s performance was strange to me. Why Jimmy’s speech patterns were so slow and simple I’ll never understand. Amalric plays Georges with a level of giddiness and excitement, though there’s more to him than is ever revealed, but nary a hint at what might be under the surface and I’m not even sure we’re meant to care.
Overall it came across as a missed opportunity. As Jimmy’s story unfolds you can see what would draw someone to tell his story, there are some fascinating things to explore about Jimmy’s decisions in life and what ails him. In fact, I wrote down a quote from the film that hit me. Jimmy says, “That was the worst thing I’ve ever done in my life.” Had the story been told in a way that gave us a greater connection to Jimmy and his past this is a statement the audience could have latched on to and used to draw comparisons to their own lives. It could have turned the feature into a heartbreaking look at the past and how it has affected us in the future. Unfortunately it lands with a dull thud.
