Peter-Rustemeyer

The Physician (2013)

Visually stunning, but weird and unnecessary changes

I read the novel over 15 years ago when I was a child, so I don't remember every detail, I cannot even fully recall the main plot line. But I'm quite sure there's a lot of stuff happening in the movie that was never in the book. And I have no idea why it was made part of the screenplay since it is neither interesting nor helpful for the story.

One can roughly cut this movie in three parts. First we meet Rob as a child, losing his mother and getting adopted by a traveling healer in medieval England. He quickly learns what the barber has to teach him, and after meeting a Jewish doctor, he realizes there's much more to learn. This part was very close to the book, wonderfully directed, it showed medieval medicine and life in all its religious superstition, naivety and nastiness. It was an ugly time and the movie is not afraid to show it.

Part two shows us - after a quick travel around the whole known world and disguising as a Jew - how Rob manages to become a pupil of Ibn Sina, the greatest doctor of his time, played by Ben Kingsley who delivers his usual Gandhi. While the visuals remain stunning, I started to get a bit bored, a lot of scenes seem to be dragged out too long.

Part three, the showdown, completely leaves the source material behind. Rob performs an abdominal operation on the Shah, who then rides to battle like El Cid, tied to his horse, willing to gloriously die for his people. The mullahs start a Pogrom in the Jewish quarter and burn down Ibn Sinas University, the love interest gets saved from being stoned to death for adultery, and then they all leave the burning city like Aeneas left Troy. I'm sorry, but something feels wrong here.

In the Novel I recall Roc's Love Interest was a red-haired Scottish girl, and the Shah desired her so hard she had to give herself to him to save Rob's life. Here she's married to a fat old guy who conveniently dies in the pogrom (insert lame redemption scene).

In the Novel I recall the Shah is a wonderful antagonist, a brutal ruthless dictator with some interesting character traits, not an open-minded western governor who wants to open society for science and multi-culture. It all felt like someone wanted to violently press into the story his version of 20th century Iran. I'd advice this person to watch the first 5 minutes of "Argo" to get a more accurate and less propaganda view of these events. Really left a bad taste in my mouth.

Instead of these endless scenes of Islamists roaming through the streets, the movie could have shown us the huge effort Rob had to put into understanding the human body, the sacrifices he had to make, the permanent danger of blowing up his cover. This seems more like a walk in the park... ;)

So, to sum it up: Visually stunning, storytelling starts well but can't keep up to its own standard. Overall I'd rate it 7/10 (5/10 +1 for costumes and scenery + 1 for Stellan Skarsgård's wonderful performance).