Best portrayal of a physician ever. "Threshold" is a little recognized movie gem. The directing, photography, acting and screenplay are crisp and realistic. There are few, if any, bells and whistles here. Donald Sutherland's portrayal of a physician is the best I've ever seen on film. His every movement, every word, even his posture says "surgeon". If you love film and can do without action, sex, violence and vulgarity for two hours treat yourself to one great performance: Threshold.
Twenty Years Ahead of its Time With the recent news (July, 2001) of the implantation of a portable powered artificial heart in a patient in Louisville, Kentucky, real life finally catches up with the story told in Threshold. This quiet and prescient film from 1981 imagines the personal and ethical questions that are faced by a medical team who develop an artificial heart, and then are faced with the question of implanting it in their first patient, a young woman whose own heart is rapidly failing. Donald Sutherland gives an understated and completely believable performance as the heart surgeon who leads the team. Jeff Goldblum plays the scientist-inventor of the heart, and his struggle for both recognition and an ethical understanding of what he has helped unleash is contrasted well against Sutherland's self-assuredness. Mare Winningham is the patient; she is almost whisper-quiet in her performance, pulling the audience in to be sure they hear her murmers. The scenes are remarkably accurate in detail, making the film seem almost like a documentary at times. The narrative remains strong, though, up to what is perhaps an overly-optimistic ending. Emmy-award winning Richard Pearce directed Threshold, one of his first feature films. Recent work has included the video remake of South Pacific.
Heart and Soul This film is what the new release, "The Hollow Man," hoped to be. Threshold convincingly and deeply explores the meaning of life, death and the invisible in-between. The biggest questions aren't whether you can be seen, they come from what you can't see--what's inside. Are you any less a person with an artifical heart?
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