Greetings again from the darkness. Based on the actual events documented in the book "The Three Christs of Ypsilanti" by Social Psychologist Milton Rokeach, the film turns ground-breaking work from 60 years ago into a generic, somewhat bland big screen production ... albeit with a talented cast. Director Jon Avnet (FRIED GREEN TOMATOES, 1991) co-wrote the script with Eric Nazarian, and they evidently believed the strong cast would be enough. Instead, we get what in days past would have been described as the TV movie of the week.

The actual story is quite interesting. Dr. Alan Stone (the dramatized version of Dr. Rokeach) is played here by a blond-haired Richard Gere. Dr. Stone comes to Michigan's Ypsilanti State Hospital in 1959 to study delusions of schizophrenics. Up to that time, we are informed that only extreme treatments were utilized, with minimal psychoanalysis practiced. Dr, Stone's approach is through therapeutic treatments. Specifically, he arranges for group therapy consisting of only three patients - each who claims to be God/Christ. Leon (Walton Goggins) demands to be addressed as God. He is the most perceptive of the three, though it's quite clear, he mostly wants a friend. Joseph (Peter Dinklage) says he is Jesus Christ of Nazareth, though he speaks with a British accent, listens to opera, and wants only to return to England (a place he's never been). Clyde (Bradley Whitford) claims to be Christ "not from Nazareth", and he spends much of each day in the shower attempting to scrub away a stench that only he can smell.

The film is at its best, and really only works, when the doctor and the three patients are in session. It allows the actors to play off each other, and explores the premise of how they go about working through the confusion of having each believe the same thing ... while allowing Dr Stone's approach to play out. Where things get murky and clog up the pacing are with the number of additional characters who bring nothing of substance to the story. Stone's wife Ruth (Julianna Margulies in a throwaway role) pops up periodically with alcoholic tendencies or a pep talk for hubby. Stone's young research assistant Becky (Charlotte Hope, "Game of Thrones") seems to be present only as an object of desire for all the Gods, and to remind us of the era's drug experimentation. And beyond those, Stone carries on a constant battle with hospital administrators played by Kevin Pollack, Stephen Root, and a rarely-seen-these-days Jane Alexander (we shouldn't forget she's a 4-time Oscar nominee).

Alec Baldwin's "I am God" from MALICE is still the best, but it's always fun to watch a God complex ... and this film offers four. The story is bookended with Dr Stone dictating his preparatory notes for a hearing on his professional actions, and the film does serve as a reminder that electroshock therapy and severe drug therapy are likely not as effective as empathy for many patients. It's rare that God, Freud and Lenny Bruce are all quoted in the same film, but mostly this one just never pushes far enough.

Three Christs is based on the book Three Christs of Ypsilanti by noted social psychologist, Milton Rokeach, who treated three schizophrenics, all with the same delusion they were Jesus Christ. The film is set at Ypsilanti State Hospital in Michigan, where Rokeach treated the three men as part of a research study between 1959 and 1961.

The protagonist, Dr. Alan Stone (based on Rokeach) is played by an earnest but good Richard Gere. Stone conscripts his "Three Christs", Joseph (Peter Dinklage) a dwarf who believes he's a sophisticated Englishman, Leon (Walton Goggins),son of an abusive religious fanatic and Clyde (Bradley Whitford),whose wife died following a botched abortion.

It's Stone's conviction that psychotherapy is preferable to shock treatment, lobotomies or anti-psychotic drugs, so he gets the idea if he puts his Three Christs in the same room, they might be able help one another (of course under his caring supervision). He hires a young assistant, Becky (Charlotte Hope),who has her own issues (a brother committed suicide following bouts of mental illness).

Stone is treated as a do-gooder liberal by the powers that be at the hospital including Dr. Rogers (Stephen Root),his so-called mentor who initially brought him for the study project. Stone ends up directly clashing with the chief of staff, Dr. Orbus (Kevin Pollack) , who is entirely unsympathetic toward Stone's type of therapy and threatens to go to Rogers and have him shut the project down at the first sign of trouble from his patients.

The first half of the second act depicts Stone attempting to gain the trust of his Three Christs with mixed results. At one point Joseph has a meltdown and the staff forces him to undergo electroshock therapy. With that setback, Rogers threatens to shut the study down but Stone gets a reprieve after Rogers agrees to wait for a review from Dr. Abraham (Jane Alexander),who apparently has the final decision as to having the study continue.

Usually at the midpoint there's something a little more dramatic for the protagonist who often is forced to move in a new direction. The complications in the second half of act two aren't very pronounced in comparison with the first half-there's more of the same problems with the Three Christs who are each on the verge of having a breakdown and becoming completely psychotic.

Screenwriters Eric Nazarian and co-writer Jon Avnet (also the film's director) introduce a subplot involving Stone's wife, Ruth (Julianna Margulies),a thankless role in which the wife's alcoholism threatens to undermine Stone, already under extreme pressure at the hospital, for his unwelcome experiment.

Despite some of the repetitious machinations of the Three Christs, things begin to pick up when Stone is featured on the cover of Psychology Today; Orbus decides that a less punitive stance toward the study patients might help him get noticed among his psychologist peers, just like Stone. Orbus meets with Joseph who sees right through him and ends up threatening the deceitful administrator. This leads to the major setback for the protagonist at the end of the second act when Stone attacks one of doctors who administers electroshock to Joseph, who in turn ends up committing suicide by jumping from Orbus' tower office.

Stone then must extricate himself from the third act crisis when he faces loss of his license and the shutting down of his study project. Dr. Abraham (equivalent to a Wizard of Oz type character) shuts the project down but then gives Stone the opportunity to take his two surviving patients to NYC where he can continue working with them. Orbus receives his comeuppance when he's forced to retire.

Three Christs I suppose is a feel good film about the psychotherapeutic professions It posits a bit of a pie-in-the-sky outlook as it presupposes that the patients Dr. Stone was working with were not hopeless cases and deep down had "hearts of gold" (not all psychiatric patients, on the other hand, are necessarily like that in real life).

Ironically, Rokeach came to reject his own experiment with the Three Christs, stating that he adopted an unfair "Godlike" stance, manipulating his patients, essentially against their will.The stories of the Three Christs eventually becomes a bit too much but the tension between the rival brands of psychiatry and psychotherapy, keep things moving until the dramatic dark moment at the end of the second act.

(Richard Gere,Kevin Pollak, Peter Dinklage and Jon Avnet... Dream team)

"How can you soar when you have no arms? And to think I was chosen to save you."

Jon Avnet's 'Three Christs' is so powerful, comedic and touching that it's easy to forget how outlandish the situation is on the surface: based on a real life experiment, a psychiatrist in the '50s is tasked with finding a new way to treat three separate paranoid schizophrenics, all of whom are convinced that they're the real Jesus Christ and the other two are imposters. As the trial goes on, the four begin to form a close, connective bond while higher ups at the mental institution threaten to shutter the program for good, eradicating all progress and signs of humanity being displayed.

I thought the film flowed so beautifully, incredibly poignant in its storytelling and it really makes you grieve and smile as the characters build chemistry and relationships. The cast up and down is simply fantastic, with special highlights from the Three Christs (Walton Goggins, Peter Dinklage and Bradley Whitford),Richard Gere as the lead psychiatrist running the experiment, Stephen Root and Kevin Pollak as his superiors, and Charlotte Hope, who plays Gere's budding college intern and has a particularly emotional bond with one of the three eponymous men. Their performances are incredibly strong and really know how to tug at the heartstrings, especially in the final 20 minutes of the film.

Unfortunately, the film is a victim of some crucial scene cutting, particularly when it comes to Julianna Marguiles' scarcely seen wife, who apparently has a bit of a drinking problem out of the blue over halfway into the film. A bit more development might've gone a long way, even if Gere's family takes a backseat in most sections. The film's weightier themes also could've been a lot more interesting to see explored further, considering the tug of war that exists between psychotherapy/new forms of getting to know such a curious mind and restoring to electric shock therapy and killing someone's real self with drugs. Instead, they're much more civilian topics here, never reaching the heights and debates they could, even though it's hinted at.

Still, this film really touched me, I found it as pleasant and smile-inducing as I did thought-provoking and devastatingly sad. It's certainly a niche film, based off a psychiatric study that's even more niche, but the performances and raw humanity of the film really help bring it to life and make it worth your time and emotional dedication.