is a 1990 biographical drama directed by Penny Marshall , based on the 1973 memoir by British neurologist Dr. Oliver Sacks . The film stars Robin Williams and Robert De Niro and depicts the extraordinary true account of catatonic patients being briefly "awakened" by an experimental drug . Core Narrative & Plot
Set in 1969 at a chronic care hospital in the Bronx, the story follows (a fictionalized version of Dr. Sacks), a shy research physician who discovers a group of patients in a decades-long catatonic state. They are survivors of the 1917–1928 encephalitis lethargica ("sleeping sickness") epidemic, which left victims physically frozen but mentally aware. Awakenings (1990)