Coma (1978)
Genre: Thriller / Mystery
Duration: 113 minuten
Country:
United States
Directed by: Michael Crichton
Stars: Geneviève Bujold, Michael Douglas and Richard Widmark
IMDb score:
6,9 (22.775)
Releasedate: 6 January 1978
Coma plot
"Imagine your life hangs by a thread. Imagine your body hangs by a wire. Imagine you're not imagining."
A young woman is a doctor in a hospital where mysterious things are happening. Relatively healthy patients have complications during simple operations and end up in a coma. The patients are then transferred to an institution that monitors them. She investigates the hospital and the institute. She asks her husband Mark for help, but she seems to be on her own.
Actors and actresses
Dr. Susan Wheeler
Dr. Mark Bellows
Mrs. Emerson
Dr. George
Dr. Harris
Nancy Greenly
Dr. Morelind
Jim
Dr. Marcus
Vince
Reviews & comments
Bottleneck
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- 8233 messages
- 2118 votes
Saw this one as a kid and only a single scene stood out to me, I really wondered for years which movie that was and finally I stumbled upon it by accident: Coma 
It's still good: filmed very clinically and soberly and with an exciting, old-fashioned cat and mouse game. It also goes a bit further than most thrillers because it deals with different themes (sideways) such as high health care costs and things that were typical of the seventies / eighties (conspiracy theories, the government / higher authorities that cannot be trusted etc., it is not without reason that the film starts with a radio fragment about bribes and the healthcare system.
The underlying reason for the comatose conditions - organ trade under the guise of lowering medical costs - gives Coma a sinister taste and a number of scenes that remind me of Cronenberg. The Jefferson Institute building has also been cleverly chosen with such a bare, distant and unreliable appearance. A wonderful thriller with a perfectly fitting open ending.
Btw, what also stands out for that zeitgeist is a kind of feminism in the form of Susan Wheeler: it is precisely a woman who discovers all kinds of things, one who works just like her husband (which causes domestic quarrels), even if doctor and not like some nurse, a sharp type as appears at the beginning of the film, but strangely enough she also collapses a few times like a scared mouse in Douglas' arms, and is so stupid to tell the whole story to the head of surgery..
Translated from Dutch · View original
knusse stoel
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- 3292 messages
- 4354 votes
Great movie with plenty of suspense.
The book "Coma" was written by Robin Cook, a medical graduate of Columbia University and Harvard University, who is known for his medical thrillers. Michael Chrichton also studied at the latter university and now I don't know if they knew each other but Chrichton also loved Science fiction, he is the writer and director of ao Jurassic Park (1993) - MovieMeter.nl.
The film Coma tells the story of Doctor Susan Wheeler who slowly but surely discovers an organ scam, only no one believes her.
Her boyfriend Mark Bellows (Michael Douglas) even suspects Suzan is suffering from persecution madness and fears she'll jeopardize his future career as a group leader.
The director of the hospital Dr. Harris (Richard Widmark) seems to be the only one who believes her but likes to see her calm down after a few incidents in and around the hospital.
Highly recommended that has an excellent story as its basis and still has sufficient pace even today.
A big 7!
Translated from Dutch · View original
Shadowed
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- 11421 messages
- 6719 votes
Half.
Coma was a film that I happened to pick up, and I grabbed that opportunity with both hands. I didn't really know what to expect from it beforehand, other than that it was a medical thriller. So that was this film, but one that is quite dark and probably especially scary for medical personnel themselves.
Coma relies heavily on dialogues and explanations. Everything is done to make the film as complete as possible in terms of medical talk, and this film therefore feels very much like a film that you sometimes watch as a child with the parents, but of which you have no idea what exactly is happening. I had that too with this film, if only because the actors are not strong enough to deliver the dialogues in an interesting way.
I actually found all that talk tiring, and despite the fact that I haven't been able to confess any plot holes thanks to this approach, I have to say that this film was quite a challenge for me. The second half is also a bit more silly because of this approach, because it really does take on a form of thriller there, but one that is just a bit too cheesy to fit the style of the film.
Still, I found the final turn of the film very strong and scary, and the visual style is very good at certain points. Too bad that the rest of the film is never really intriguing and I just couldn't keep my focus on the dialogues. These kinds of movies are just not really made for me, and I can be honest about that.
Coma is a special film, one that was made for a fairly limited audience but is probably effective for anyone with even the slightest interest in this world. I just just lacked the sense of mystery, which made the first half just too tough for me. That doesn't take away from the fact that Coma is a decent film, just not for me.
Translated from Dutch · View original
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