I know that sometimes taking a hard stance against a beloved movie like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is always risky, but this is one that I've held for a long time, and I’m comfortable if the comments about this take aim at me. I simply don’t like the movie. Weirdly, I don’t have a problem with the Oscars it won (and it won a lot in one of the best Oscar races ever), and I don’t dislike anything about the production of the movie. The Cuckoo’s Nest cast and their performances are fantastic, the directing from Miloš Forman is top-notch, and the dialogue is spot on. There is a fundamental flaw with this book-to-screen adaptation, and that is the reduction of the most important character in the book, Chief Bromden, into something way less than he should have been. (Image credit: United Artists)Chief Bromden Is The Heart And Soul Of The BookI love the novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest by Ken Kesey. When people ask me what my favorite book ever is, I usually answer with the 1962 novel that helped define a generation. I’ve read the book four times over the years, and every time I read it, I get something new out of it. When I first read it, sometime in high school in the early ‘90s, I focused on what the movie focuses on: R.P. McMurphy (Jack Nicholson in the movie, in one of his best roles) and his exploits in the ward of the mental hospital. I was taken by McMurphy. His anti-authoritarian posturing was perfect for an anxious wanna-be rebellious teenager. He is loud and brash, and lives life his own way. It’s basically any 15-year-old’s dream. Minus the getting locked up part, obviously. I also loved the stories of the other guys in the ward, like Billy, Martini, and Harding. They all get their own glory in the movie. However, in each of my subsequent readings, it’s always been about Bromden. The story is told through his eyes, and it’s his thoughts that continue to stick with me. (Image credit: United Artists)Bromden Is Basically A Side Character In The MovieHere’s the problem with the movie: Bromden is more or less irrelevant to the story. Sure, he gets his big moment at the end, just as in the book, but it feels so much less deserved in the movie. He’s basically a tall Native American that McMurphy needs for his basketball team in the movie. Gone from the movie are his thoughts on the ward and society as a whole. His backstory–his father being cheated by the United States and Bromden’s retreat into himself, landing him on the ward–is erased from the character.He’s a side character who befriends McMurphy because McMurphy treats him like a regular guy. He’s not the center of the story, as he is in the book, he’s barely a character at all. Some may disagree with me, but I don’t like that Bromden has his revelation at the end of the movie and decides to smother McMurphy after the latter is lobotomized, basically because McMurphy gave him a piece of Juicy Fruit. His motivations in the book are far bigger. (Image credit: United Artists)Eliminating Bromden’s Omniscience Misses The Whole PointIn the book, Bromden tells the story of McMurphy’s battle against Nurse Ratched on the ward of the hospital. He’s not an unreliable narrator, though. He’s telling the reader what he’s observing on the ward. He’s mixing that in with memories of his childhood and of his father, and weaving that into a larger narrative about “The Combine.” The Combine is society, trying to get everyone to follow the rules, and breaking down those who refuse to play ball. Nurse Ratched (Louise Fletcher in the movie) represents the Combine in Bromden’s small world in the hospital. She is at war with McMurphy, who is refusing to play by the rules of the ward, goading everyone else to join him in his defiance. To Bromden, McMurphy is a hero, fighting societal norms and yearning to break free of The Combine. Indeed, to destroy the whole machine itself. None of that is part of the movie, at least not in any real way. Yeah, McMurphy is a rebel, but he’s just a criminal. He’s not representative of anything bigger, as he’s meant to be in the book. Even by the filmmakers’ account, they were just looking to cast an Indian who was tall and big. He was really seen as nothing more than a side character at best. That really irks me when I watch the movie, as I did just recently for the first time in a couple of decades. It didn’t change my opinion, overall. The story is about mental illness, yes, but it’s about so much more. (Image credit: United Artists)By The Way, Ken Kesey Agreed With MeThe author of Cuckoo’s Nest, Ken Kesey, agreed with his assessment. Though he loved the play that was adapted from the book a decade before the movie (as do I), he didn’t like the movie for the same reasons I don’t. Ratched isn’t the villain in the book, as Kesey has pointed out. The villain is the Combine, and Big Nurse was only a cog in the machine. She is representative of the Combine, but the machine is way bigger than her. In a documentary called Completely Cuckoo, which is an extra on the digital download I bought with my Apple subscription, Kesey says:There's something in the American soul. We're going to take this monster with a tail and throw it over its back and whip it. This is the Combine, and this is the Murphy. The villain in Cuckoo’s Nest is the Combine. It's not the nurse. When you drop it down to being the nurse, you're back into melodrama.Kesey claimed in later interviews that he’d never seen the movie, and never intended to. While he was initially hired by the producers (which included Michael Douglas) to write a screenplay, they rejected it because he wanted the film to be more like the book, trippy and psychedelic, with a bigger concept than what he called a Hogan’s Heroes-style melodrama. The screenplay, which won an Oscar, is great, but it’s not the Cuckoo’s Nest I love, and that is a flaw I’ll never be able to get over. November is Native American Heritage Month, which is what inspired me to revisit the movie. After watching the movie again and realizing that I’m never going to see it as the book’s equal, I really can’t wait to read it again.