The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Mathieu Amalric, Marie-Josée Croze, Emmanuelle Seigner

Directed by: Julian Schnabel

Rating: 5 stars

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is the incredibly true story of the "Elle" magazine editor Jean-Dominque Bauby (played by Mathieu Amalric). On December 8th, 1995, Jean-Dominique, "Jean-Do", suffered a stroke which caused him to lapse into a 20-day coma. Upon waking up his doctors discovered that he suffered from "locked-in" syndrome, which meant that he had no control of his body and only his mind and eyes could function properly. The doctors had to sew Jean-Do's right eye because something was wrong with it. You can imagine the man's frustration that he could think but could not get across what he was trying to say. Every day, therapists worked with him to try and regain usage of his motor skills then ability to fully function. With the help of Henriette Roi (Marie-Josée Croze), Jean-Do was able to communicate what he wanted to say by blinking his left eye. Using a system of letters, Henriette would recite the alphabet in a specific order and Jean-Do would blink when she said right letter. Sometimes she could guess a phrase if she had enough words and even guess the word (if it started something like "je vou.." and she would guess "I want..."). Eventually, Jean-Do decides he wants to write a book to which he actually does.

I would give this movie 5 stars. It's an amazing story about a man who has lost everything in his life by being locked-in his own body. The only way he can express something is by blinking and that must be so hard to have to memorize what you want to say only to be able to fully blink the phrase in a matter of a few minutes. Jean-Dominique's story is so sad. After being stuck in a hospital for months, he's haunted by regrets and memories. What makes this movie depressing is the fact that just as he was starting to improve (though very, very slowly), he got pneumonia and died a few days after his book was released. There was hope but the pneumonia took it away. Doctors couldn't understand why a healthy man like Jean-Dominique had a stroke.

I would recommend this movie to those who don't mind reading subtitles (or are fluent in the French language). If you don't mind a movie with a sad ending, then go watch this film. Though his autobiography is on my list of books to read, I would even recommend reading it if you can read French! You can see why this movie is worth five stars, it was nominated for the Academy Awards and four Oscar nominations. Go see this, you won't regret it.