This film has been little heard from since its release over thirty years ago, but deserves better, as it touches on one of the long-running scandals of US medicine.
The title is perhaps not wholly appropriate. The central character, troubled teen Tim Doolan (Adam Horowitz), may well have been lost in various ways, but he is far from angelic. He and his girl friend have a run-in with the Police after driving her parents' car into a swimming-pool. His Mom and stepdad have left him home alone while they go off for a foreign holiday. His divorced (and violent) natural father refuses to take him in, disowning him because he "chose his Mom" at the time of the divorce. From what we see of his half-brother, who chose Dad, this may not have been entirely a bad thing.
On their return, Mom and stepdad extricate him from Juvie Hall at the price of enrolling him in a psychiatric hospital. One can perhaps have some sympathy for their action, but surely none at all for the way it is carried out. They leave him in the dining room while they go to "sort something out" then drive away without so much as a goodbye. When he realises this, his understandable panic attack leads to his being held down and anaesthetised. He wakes to find himself strapped to a bed
Nor do things improve later, When the parents, Mom and both Dads, are gathered together for family therapy, the meeting quickly degenerates into a brawl, with both sides screaming abuse at each other, completely ignoring Tim's presence. And when he co-operates with the programme to some extent, and is allowed a day out with his mother, inevitably something "comes up" and she doesn't keep the appointment. .If he's not exactly more sinned against than sinning, at least both are clearly present in ample amounts.
Aided by the brother, who has turned up like the proverbial bad penny, he gets out anyway. But when, after various stupidities, he gets to visit his home, he is in for a shock. The parents are so busy entertaining guests that it's several minutes before they even notice his arrival. Moreover, his things have been cleared out of his old room. It is precisely as though he has never existed.
At this point one might see benefits in his committal. With parents like these, some time away from them might even help. Well, at least it could have, had the staff at the institute been conscientious and caring. But they are nothing of the sort. With one important exception, they see the kids purely as a meal ticket. Even the Janitor despises them, dismissing them as "rich garbage" whom nobody wants. They are detained as long as their folks' medical insurance lasts, then discharged whether they are ready for release or not. Thus the girlfriend, whose parents have a cheaper policy, is freed long before Tim. She blesses her luck, but it turns out not to be.
Tim has one support there, Dr Charles Loftus (Donald Sutherland), the one decent doctor in the place. However, he has problems of his own, as his work puts too much strain upon his marriage. Indeed, as he storms against the evils of the system to his more complacent colleagues, at times his behaviour and his language are hardly better than those of his protégé. However, when Tim, once again AWOL, learns that his former girlfriend has a drug problem, Loftus steps in to trace her, possibly saving her life. However he cannot stop Tim being penalised for going out w/o permission. There is more of the same, mostly involving the brother who has "graduated" to gun crime.
The ending perhaps lacks conviction. Loftus drops Tim off at home, promising to sort things out with the Institute, hence the alternative title "The Road Home". . One wonders if it could really be that simple, and what the parents would have to say. But all in all it isn't bad.
I have seen this film decried as "sensationalist", but, though action-packed, it isn't really. Indeed, at times it seems more like a documentary than a drama. By one of those crazy coincidences, in the same year this film was made, I was reading a horrific newspaper story about how perfectly normal children were being confined to mental institutions on spurious "diagnoses", which enabled the nuthouses to run up extravagant bills for their "therapy". One particularly nasty case involved a then 13-year-old boy in Florida who was doing his second stretch in such a place (the first had been when he was eleven!!) and whose only illness was that since his parents' divorce he had kept insisting that he wanted to live with the non-custodial parent. While confined, he was drugged against his will despite being perfectly healthy. Eventually, he won his fight over custody, but not until he was *fifteen*. A straight-A student when his ordeal began, by the end he was having to repeat a year in some subjects. If there is one thing worse than a neglectful parent, it would seem to be an over-possessive one.
Clearly, you didn't have to be a delinquent to encounter the kind of abuse described in "Lost Angels". I should like to believe that this sort of thing couldn't happen today, but quick googles for "child psychiatric fraud" or similar are far from reassuring. This line of business seems to be much the same "Snake Pit" that it was when this movie was made.
In short, well worth a view and I wish it was more widely known.
The title is perhaps not wholly appropriate. The central character, troubled teen Tim Doolan (Adam Horowitz), may well have been lost in various ways, but he is far from angelic. He and his girl friend have a run-in with the Police after driving her parents' car into a swimming-pool. His Mom and stepdad have left him home alone while they go off for a foreign holiday. His divorced (and violent) natural father refuses to take him in, disowning him because he "chose his Mom" at the time of the divorce. From what we see of his half-brother, who chose Dad, this may not have been entirely a bad thing.
On their return, Mom and stepdad extricate him from Juvie Hall at the price of enrolling him in a psychiatric hospital. One can perhaps have some sympathy for their action, but surely none at all for the way it is carried out. They leave him in the dining room while they go to "sort something out" then drive away without so much as a goodbye. When he realises this, his understandable panic attack leads to his being held down and anaesthetised. He wakes to find himself strapped to a bed
Nor do things improve later, When the parents, Mom and both Dads, are gathered together for family therapy, the meeting quickly degenerates into a brawl, with both sides screaming abuse at each other, completely ignoring Tim's presence. And when he co-operates with the programme to some extent, and is allowed a day out with his mother, inevitably something "comes up" and she doesn't keep the appointment. .If he's not exactly more sinned against than sinning, at least both are clearly present in ample amounts.
Aided by the brother, who has turned up like the proverbial bad penny, he gets out anyway. But when, after various stupidities, he gets to visit his home, he is in for a shock. The parents are so busy entertaining guests that it's several minutes before they even notice his arrival. Moreover, his things have been cleared out of his old room. It is precisely as though he has never existed.
At this point one might see benefits in his committal. With parents like these, some time away from them might even help. Well, at least it could have, had the staff at the institute been conscientious and caring. But they are nothing of the sort. With one important exception, they see the kids purely as a meal ticket. Even the Janitor despises them, dismissing them as "rich garbage" whom nobody wants. They are detained as long as their folks' medical insurance lasts, then discharged whether they are ready for release or not. Thus the girlfriend, whose parents have a cheaper policy, is freed long before Tim. She blesses her luck, but it turns out not to be.
Tim has one support there, Dr Charles Loftus (Donald Sutherland), the one decent doctor in the place. However, he has problems of his own, as his work puts too much strain upon his marriage. Indeed, as he storms against the evils of the system to his more complacent colleagues, at times his behaviour and his language are hardly better than those of his protégé. However, when Tim, once again AWOL, learns that his former girlfriend has a drug problem, Loftus steps in to trace her, possibly saving her life. However he cannot stop Tim being penalised for going out w/o permission. There is more of the same, mostly involving the brother who has "graduated" to gun crime.
The ending perhaps lacks conviction. Loftus drops Tim off at home, promising to sort things out with the Institute, hence the alternative title "The Road Home". . One wonders if it could really be that simple, and what the parents would have to say. But all in all it isn't bad.
I have seen this film decried as "sensationalist", but, though action-packed, it isn't really. Indeed, at times it seems more like a documentary than a drama. By one of those crazy coincidences, in the same year this film was made, I was reading a horrific newspaper story about how perfectly normal children were being confined to mental institutions on spurious "diagnoses", which enabled the nuthouses to run up extravagant bills for their "therapy". One particularly nasty case involved a then 13-year-old boy in Florida who was doing his second stretch in such a place (the first had been when he was eleven!!) and whose only illness was that since his parents' divorce he had kept insisting that he wanted to live with the non-custodial parent. While confined, he was drugged against his will despite being perfectly healthy. Eventually, he won his fight over custody, but not until he was *fifteen*. A straight-A student when his ordeal began, by the end he was having to repeat a year in some subjects. If there is one thing worse than a neglectful parent, it would seem to be an over-possessive one.
Clearly, you didn't have to be a delinquent to encounter the kind of abuse described in "Lost Angels". I should like to believe that this sort of thing couldn't happen today, but quick googles for "child psychiatric fraud" or similar are far from reassuring. This line of business seems to be much the same "Snake Pit" that it was when this movie was made.
In short, well worth a view and I wish it was more widely known.