Robin Williams sheds one tear too many

Robin Williams sheds one tear too many

What happened to Robin Williams? With every movie it grows clearer that EW’s choice for funniest man alive has charted a divided course, putting his maniacal energy into kid fare like Aladdin, Jumanji, and Flubber while confining his ”adult” roles in a straitjacket of twinkling earnestness. Considering that he has one of the most malleable minds outside of an asylum, the psychologized treacle of Jack, Fathers’ Day, and now What Dreams May Come is a curious pass indeed.

In the ’80s, Williams mixed the silly and somber better in tricky films like The World According to Garp and Moscow on the Hudson; his later Oscar-nominated turns in Good Morning, Vietnam and The Fisher King even showed that the Juilliard-schooled comic could be wackily moving. But by now his beatific half-moon smile has been slapped on too many fathers, doctors, and therapists. Why does he keep going back? Studios certainly like a safe bet; as evidenced by Patch Adams, the public loves Williams as Dr. Feelgood. And after all the antics, the 47-year-old family man may now feel obliged to model sanity. So it may be too much to expect Williams to do something new in Dreams, an afterlife fantasy that puts him through a literal hell to save his wife (Annabella Sciorra). But there was a time when he surprised us. And by looking at certain key performances, you can chart his slippery path to sentimental standard-bearer.

THE WORLD ACCORDING TO GARP – The quirky film of John Irving’s quirkier novel is grounded by Williams’ first dramatic performance. As the titular hero, a writer and father whose life is as absurd as it is tragic, he captures Irving’s tone of balmy unreality, pulling off scenes (like one in which Garp sweetly draws a baby face on his pregnant wife’s belly) that would have undone a more dispassionate actor. A

DEAD POETS SOCIETY – Williams’ Oscar-nominated turn as an inspirational poetry teacher at a 1950s boys’ prep school who struts the classroom as if it were a stage pulls together Peter Weir’s mystical paean to youthful spirit, attending to the complex business of portraying both a mentor and a free spirit. B

AWAKENINGS – Williams plays the reclusive physician who temporarily cures victims of a mysterious catatonia. Director Penny Marshall stages the rejuvenation of the patients (including a showboating Robert De Niro) like a tryout for a bad sitcom, yet Williams isn’t goofing around; in fact, he’s unnaturally still. It’s the last performance in which he disappears entirely into the role. C+

HOOK – Steven Spielberg’s too-precious update of Peter Pan is the turning point between the dry-eyed and saturated Williams. For the first time, he has full license to let out his inner child, morphing from sharklike lawyer to overgrown elf (both too cutesy-pie) to save his kids from Captain Hook. The story is too self-aware to enchant, and Williams’ Peter becomes a puppet-show character whose ebullience grates rather than inspires. D

MRS. DOUBTFIRE – Shtick becomes requisite in this family comedy from Chris Columbus (Home Alone) in which Williams’ divorced actor pretends to be an English nanny so he can be near his kids. While his gift for improv gets a workout, so does a cardboard approach to his wacky-but-lovable character. And as with Hook, yearning Father Robin once again yields maximum weepiness. C-

GOOD WILL HUNTING – Finally, a role more chewy than sweet, and an Oscar for his troubles. Williams’ soul-beaten therapist, Sean Maguire, proves almost as recalcitrant as Matt Damon’s troubled genius, and Williams finds the ambiguities in an otherwise familiar role by turning his volume way down. Hiding behind a wild-man beard, he proves how compelling he can be. B+

WHAT DREAMS MAY COME – Vincent Ward’s adaptation of the Richard Matheson novel is a dream of a Robin Williams weepie. The pediatrician hero is patient, loving, and a bit hard on his children, but for their own good. Then they all die, and we spend the rest of the movie in the afterlife, watching Williams play a soul. Though an admirable ode to eternal love, the happy ending would have been better earned with a leading man whose giddiness wasn’t so guaranteed. Dreams and Williams’ followup, Patch Adams, are schmaltz writ so large that this gifted actor may finally decide it’s time to be reborn. D