David and Lisa

I suppose nowadays we would diagnose "David" (Keir Dullea) with some sort of compulsive disorder, but he really doesn't like to be touched - however affectionately. At the end of their tethers, his well-to-do parents have sent him to a school that specialises in educating and treating folk with mental illness - but he hates authority and so the best efforts of "Dr. Swinford" (Howard Da Silva) are making little impact on his introspective behaviour or on his rather macabre recurring dream. Then he meets "Lisa" (Janet Margolin) who wants him to play wit(h) her. She's a girl in her late teens who rarely speaks unless it's in rhyme and, it turns out, suffers from some form of schizophrenia. Initially, he sees her as something of a laboratory colleague he hopes to be able to "cure", but as his own therapy starts to take more effect and he and she begin to associate more, both begin to discover the benefits of a psychological intimacy that exposes to each of them, and to their doctor, some of the root causes of their problems. It's not actually so very difficult to assess some of his, as we meet his over-bearing mother (Neva Patterson) who feigns affection for her son but who always exudes one of those personalities that cares more about what the neighbours might think if her son doesn't end up going to Princeton. This is certainly not an easy watch, but Dullea is on really quite affecting form balancing the highly intelligent but clearly troubled characterisation of "David" and Margolin brings an innocence and vulnerability to her "Lisa" that is both plausible and touching. It is, however, possibly Da Silva who steps up best here as the doctor treading on eggshells; enduring the temper tantrums and trying to remain focussed on helping his charges to heal, or at least to acknowledge their illnesses and that way begin to make some progress understanding their demons. With Patterson working into this mix well too, we watch quite a compelling exposé on the effects of mental illness on the sick and those around them whilst taking quite an objective perspective on what was still a very embryonic clinical science, too.