As an Aspie with comorbid bipolar 1, this movie was very hard to watch. The Nurse Ratched character was terrifying because there really are people like her in the world, especially in the GOP. Jack Nicholson's character, McMurphy, was just as bad in my opinion. I know he tries to help the other patients, but he's a psychopath who faked insanity to avoid prison. Not a very good role model if you ask me.
Don't get me wrong, this movie means well in trying to be honest about how asylums were back then, and the abuse that mentally different people had to endure at the time, but it should've been handled with more respect than it was. You shouldn't mock and stereotype people who have problems, and a psychopath like McMurphy is the last type of person they need to inspire them. If it were up to me, I would replace McMurphy's character with someone who actually has a mental illness, like a bipolar person or something, to be the hero instead.
I also felt very bad for Billy (Brad Dourif's character) in this movie. Nurse Ratched's cruel sociopathic abuse drove him to commit suicide. And she didn't even care. Such a horrible woman. She should've gotten her comeuppance in the end.
I'm just glad that Chief, the schizophrenic patient, was able to escape and live happily ever after in the end. Similar to what the one reviewer said, I couldn't even sympathize with McMurphy because he wasn't exactly a saint himself.