The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, with the original title Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon, by Ronald Howard, based on the memoir by Jean -Dominique Bauby was nominated for four Oscars in 2008, including the ones for Best Achievement in Directing for Julian Schnabel, and for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for Ronald Harwood, it is an outstanding work of art – you find thousands of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws help with the reviews

 

The Diving Bell and The Butterfly, with the original title Le Scaphandre et Le Papillon, by Ronald Howard, based on the memoir by Jean -Dominique Bauby was nominated for four Oscars in 2008, including the ones for Best Achievement in Directing for Julian Schnabel, and for Best Writing, Adapted Screenplay for Ronald Harwood, it is an outstanding work of art – you find thousands of notes on films from The New York Times’ Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made and other sites on my blog https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/09/do-you-have-any-feedback.html and YouTube channel, where my macaws help with the reviews

 

9 out of 10

 

Stumbling On Happiness https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/02/stumbling-on-happiness-by-david-gilbert.html by Harvard Professor Daniel Gilbert is a life changing book, it looks at what people think will make them happy, there is also The Hedonic Adaptation Effect, we adapt to almost anything and I was thinking about that

 

Considering the tragedy of Jean-Dominique Bauby, called Jean-Do by friends, the editor of Elle, who had suffered a massive stroke, while driving with his teenage son, and then he is left paralyzed, with only one eye open, which he would learn to use to communicate, by blinking and then choosing letters, this is how he would write his memoir

The film opens with the hero on the bed, the doctor comes in to inform him on the ‘locked-in syndrome’ which affects few people, but that includes Jean-Do, there are questions, the patient answers, thinks they hear him, but they do not, this will be one of the disturbing, even if sometimes funny, aspects of the narrative

 

Matthieu Amalric is outstanding in the leading role, Munich https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2026/04/munich-screenplay-by-tony-kushner-eric.html is one of the great movies in which the thespian delivers a remarkable performance, even when he is just staring though that eye, Amalric is splendid

After his stroke, the former editor of Elle, used with an agitated, active, full life, is paralyzed, and he has to learn to use the blinking of his eye to communicate, he says he wants to die, but eventually finds a reason to live, he starts writing his memoir, with the help of a dedicated woman, he had also had some turmoil in his private life

 

His wife visits him, first alone and then with their children, but Josephine, his lover, finds it impossible…then there is the father, magician Max von Sydow https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2025/06/the-seventh-seal-written-play-and.html has that role, a formidable presence

There is one scene – well, actually so many, or all of them – where there are mixed feelings, when the lover calls the room, and the wife is visiting, furthermore, the mistress needs the help of her rival to talk with Jean Do, he has to blink and then his message to be deciphered, if you will, and then delivered to the interlocutor

 

When it seems that it would all go towards a better future, not the impossible happy end where the protagonist just stands up and walks, though they suggest a visit to Lourdes, with the hope of a miracle, we have another drama, I will not say what, but somehow, it adds to the gravitas, the significance, this is a real story