Shock treatment: Ratched is a stylishly gruesome soap opera dialed up to 11
Sarah Paulson plays Nurse Mildred Ratched in Ratched, series creator Evan Romansky's prequel (of sorts) to One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.
One of the most iconic movie villains of all time gets the American Horror Story treatment in Ratched, Netflix's star-studded prequel, of sorts, to Director Milos Forman's Oscar-winning 1975 film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. The series is richly styled and visually striking, and the cast is terrific, but there's very little substance or insight, and the plotting is a meandering mess riddled with holes and inconsistent characterizations. It's basically a body horror soap opera in which everything is dialed up to 11 for maximum shock value.
(Spoilers for One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest book and film below. Some spoilers for Ratched but no major reveals.)
As I wrote previously, Forman's film is based on the 1962 novel of the same name by Ken Kesey. It's set in a psychiatric hospital in Salem, Oregon, where Randle Patrick McMurphy (Jack Nicholson) is sent after faking insanity to escape a prison farm sentence for assault and the statutory rape of a 15-year-old girl. The cold, rigidly controlled (and controlling) Nurse Mildred Ratched (aka Big Nurse, played by Louise Fletcher) rules the place with an iron hand. She maintains order by withholding basic necessities, medications, or patient privileges—with the occasional bit of hydrotherapy and electroshock therapy for especially unruly patients—but McMurphy's rebellious nature challenges her authority.
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