As the Jimmy in Jimmy P, Benicio Del Toro is memorable playing an American Indian home from World War II with a host of puzzling symptoms. Plagued by paralyzing headaches, sleep walking and flashing lights, Jimmy is bedraggled and uncommunicative. When his sister takes him to the VA hospital, the staff is compassionate, but fail to find a physical cause for his condition. Perhaps because of Jimmy’s stubborn refusal to answer all questions, a psychologist has a brain storm: “He may conceivably be psychotic” he reports, but because “he’s an Indian, whose personality and behavior we do not fully understand,” he calls in an anthropologist with an interest in Native Americans to consult on the case.
Fortunately, the anthropologist, Dr. Devereux (Mathieu Amalric), is a committed Freudian whose first act is to remove Jimmy from the psych ward, a snake pit filled with the maniac casualties of war. Amalric is delightful as the eccentric French intellectual, an Old World refugee at home in the New World. Much of the film is devoted to a long course of talk therapy as Devereux interprets Jimmy’s dreams and draws out his mental associations in an effort to help him understand and come to terms with his past. Nowadays, the VA doctor might prescribe meds and send him on his way.
“This is a true story,” Jimmy P’s opening title insists—not “inspired by” or “based on.” The film is out on DVD.
