The Professor and the Madman Parent Guide

Professor James Murray (Mel Gibson) can’t be accused of taking the easy road. Indeed, the self-taught Scotsman has a lofty goal – creating the first comprehensive Oxford English Dictionary. Compiling definitions and usage histories for over 200,000 words is no small task, especially without computers. In 1879, Murray and his colleagues send out a call for help to the general public and are thrilled when thousands of cards come flooding in, including 10,000 entries from a particularly skilled contributor. But when they learn that their star lexicographer is a murderer locked up in the Broadmoor Asylum for the Criminally Insane, Murray is threatened with dismissal for tainting both the dictionary and the august university that is sponsoring it.

The Professor and the Madman explores an interesting slice of history but it’s more than just a look at how the world’s foremost English dictionary came into being. It’s an examination of languages and how they grow and evolve and what we learn when we parse the history of our own words. The film is also a study of friendship; of how unexpected affinities can bring the most unlikely people together in webs of respect, compassion, and loyalty. And, most of all, it’s a look at humanity at its most broken and vulnerable.

“Broken” is certainly a good descriptor for Murray’s star volunteer, Dr. William Minor (Sean Penn). A brilliant man whose sanity broke after serving in the Union Army during the Civil War, Minor suffered from delusions of persecution and murdered a man while hallucinating. Now locked up in Broadmoor, Minor researches words to keep his demons at bay. The filmmakers deserve credit for their portrayal of Minor: it’s nuanced and avoids stereotyping him either as a crazed killer or as a martyred victim of the legal establishment. Minor suffers from a serious mental illness and does violent and dangerous things but he also has a brilliant mind, valuable skills, a profound sense of guilt, and a strong desire to make amends in any way possible. With this character, the movie asks us to question our own beliefs about justice and mercy; about redemption and punishment; about looking for the good in unlikely souls.

Given Minor’s criminal acts and tendency towards self harm, the film does come with some violent content, including a man being shot to death in front of his own family. There are also scenes of a man being branded on the face and one of a man having an iron spike pierce his leg. Most disturbing of all is a scene where a man cuts off his own genitals – the activity occurs off screen but the aftermath is bloody and the whole episode is deeply disturbing. If you can control your gag reflex at that particular scene, you will find that the movie gives you plenty to think about. And whether you love or hate the film, you’ll never look at a dictionary the same way again.