Themes: Journey of Self-Discovery, Doctors and Patients
Main Cast: Patrick Swayze, Pauline Collins, Om Puri, Shabana Azmi, Art Malik
Release Year: 1992
Country: UK/FR
Run Time: 134 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
In this drama, a wealthy American doctor learns some important lessons about life in one of the poorest cities on Earth. Max Lowe (Patrick Swayze) is a Houston surgeon who has grown weary of the bureaucracy of American medicine. When he loses a patient on the operating table, Max impulsively decides to leave America and travel to India in the hope of "finding himself." Not long after he arrives in Calcutta, Max is attacked by a group of thugs and left without money or a passport. However, a man named Hasari (Om Puri) comes to Max's rescue. Hasari had left his farming community to come to the city, only to be overwhelmed by its dirt, crime, and overcrowding. Despite their poverty, Hasari and his family take Max in and bring him to a medical clinic in the City of Joy, one of the poorest slums in the city. The clinic is run by Joan Bethel (Pauline Collins), an Irish-American nun who urges Max to use his skills to help the people of Calcutta who so desperately need it. Max signs on, and he finds that the experience changes his life. City of Joy was based on a novel by Dominique Lapierre. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Hasari Pal (Om Puri) is a rural farmer who moves to Calcutta with his wife (Shabana Azmi) and three children in search of a better life. The Pals don't get off to a very good start: They are cheated out of their rent money and thrown out on the streets, and it's difficult for Hasari to find a job to support them. But the determined family refuses to give up and eventually finds its place in the poverty-stricken city.
Meanwhile, on the other end of Calcutta, disillusioned Texas doctor Max Lowe (Patrick Swayze) has arrived in search of some spiritual enlightenment after the loss of a patient. He, too, gets off to a rough start: After being tricked by a young prostitute, he is roughed up by thugs and left bleeding in the street without his documents and valuable possessions.
Hasari comes to Max's aid and takes the injured doctor to the "City of Joy," a slum area populated with lepers and poor people that becomes the Pals' new home and the American's home away from home. Max spends a lot of time in the neighborhood, but he doesn't want to become too involved with the residents because he is afraid of becoming emotionally attached to them. He soon, however, is coaxed into helping his new-found friends by a strong-willed Irish woman (Pauline Collins), who runs the local clinic.
Eventually, Max begins to fit in with his fellow slum-dwellers. And he begins to see that his life isn't half bad. There are many around him whose lives are much worse, but they look on each day with a hope that gives new strength to the depressed doctor.
