Larry

This made for TV movie has two wonderful performances. The under- appreciated Frederick Forrest stars as Larry Herman, raised among autistics due to a childhood misdiagnosis. When he is moved from a youth home to an adult facility, a new therapist comes into play. Nancy Hockworth (Tyne Daly) shines as a caring, insightful professional, who is convinced that Larry is not merely high-functioning, he is completely normal.

Watch carefully for an amazing scene in which Daly succeeds in convincing an overworked M.D. that Larry is cognitively advanced. Your head will swim as Larry demonstrates a mastery of abstractions.

Try to remain dry-eyed as Daly's character gently guides Larry into an adult world he has missed for over 20 years.

Don't miss this gem if it is offered late night as a rerun.

The central character in the film "Larry" is a 26-year-old man named Larry Herman.Diagnosed severely mentally retarded he has the trademark shuffling gait,grunting gutteral speech,a blank flat stare! And yet by some miracle a man of normal intellect has survived within this shell and is waiting to live his life! And we learn that this "miracle" is not a miracle at all! Larry is a tragic case of misdiagnosis,abandonement,institutionalization,and lack of genuine concern on the part of his caretakers! The simple fact that Larry has survived to adulthood could be called a miracle but it is so much more than that! It is the sheer force of the human will!! The films opens with Larry's transfer from the small,private "home" from which he lived since infancy to the state facility thjat has taken him in for evaluation and treatment! His new therapist Nancy Hockworth is immediately taken by Larry's awareness and "sophistication" So much different from the other men on the ward!She wants him retested.However,her superior Dr.McCabe tends to view his patients with caring but professional distance!He seriously doubts Nancy's suspicions-that there IS someone else behind the facade of retardation! And he finds that she's correct!Larry Herman is not retarded-he's NORMAL!! But what to do now?? Larry has lived his entire life in an institution! Will he ever really be able to live by himself in that REAL WORLD!! This is a turning point in the story: the doctor who doubted at first wants Larry to achieve full independence.But Nancy who all along believed in Larry's NORMALACY wants to keep him at the institution! To protect him from the world out there! Despite it all, Larry does achieve his independence-earning an outside job and apartment. But he predictably wants no further association with his former caretakers and simply leaves-no good-byes,no explanations! We are left to hope that he HAS achieved enough to finally begin the life that was robbed from him so long ago!!

The fact that "Larry" is supposed to be based on the life of a real person makes this story tragic. Larry has lived his whole life in a wretched and substandard facility for the developmentally disabled. When the awfulness of the place is discovered, it's closed and Larry is transferred to a state hospital...where his social worker (Tyne Daly) comes to realize he might not, in fact, be mentally challenged. He sure acts like he is...but she comes to realize that growing up among these sorts of folks, he naturally learned to fit in with them. But first she has to convince the doctor in charge that Larry is different and in need of special therapy. Much of the film shows her and Larry working together to bring him up to normal functioning level.

The film is extraordinary and very well made. Frederic Forrest in the title role is excellent and the film is quite bittersweet...sad because of all the lost time yet filled with hope for the future. It's also handled very sensitively, though times have changed and many of the terms used today are no longer acceptable to many, such as 'mental retardation'. Bear with it...that IS how they talked back in the day. Well worth seeing.

I remember seeing this movie over 20 years ago and found it to be very well made. Both Forrest and Daly made fine performances and I was surprised to find out now that it was actually a made for television movie and am quite puzzled why it hasn't made it out to VHS or DVD as of yet? I know it being a television movie it might not get the backing to release it onto a format such as VHS or DVD but having a decent cast would have prompted distributors or producers to release it onto tape years ago. In scouring Ebay and Amazon and Barnes & Noble, I come up with nothing! Does anyone know of an outlet that sells it or does anyone have an old copy that I could trade for or buy?

Uplifting story of a man, who was abandoned by his mother to a mental institution, as a retard. He had assumed the speech patterns and mannerisms of the institutional retarded people that surrounded him. Only by heroic effort and luck did he communicate his intelligence to a professional who was paying attention and who cared. Thus begins his rehabilitation. Superb early performances by Tyne Daly and Fredric Forrest.