The best sci-fi films ever made are mostly acknowledged for their visual effects at the Oscars. It’s rare to see their actors win awards for their performances, no matter how good they are. There are outliers, of course, as audiences saw when Michelle Yeoh won Best Actress for “Everything Everywhere All at Once” in 2023. When was the last time someone took home the Best Actor trophy for a sci-fi flick, though? To answer that question, you have to travel back to 1968, when Cliff Robertson won for his performance in “Charly.”
Based on Daniel Keyes’ “Flowers of Algernon,” a short story that later became a novel, “Charly” tells the story of an intellectually disabled man who undergoes a brain operation and becomes a genius. However, while he can operate complex machinery, Charly’s emotional development doesn’t match his IQ. To make matters worse, the protagonist’s newfound genius state might not be permanent.
It goes without saying that “Charly” isn’t one of the more popular movies based on a sci-fi short story or novel. The film is largely forgotten, but it isn’t the only Oscar-winning sci-fi flick that’s rarely discussed today. With that in mind, does “Charly” deserve to be reappraised, or has it been forgotten because it isn’t very good?
Critics praised Cliff Robertson’s performance in Charly
“Charly” isn’t the most critically acclaimed picture to produce a Best Actor winner at the Academy Awards. As of this writing, the film has a 55% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, with critics mostly taking issue with the film’s script and portrayal of mental disabilities. However, Cliff Robertson’s performance was generally well-received, even if the material held him back. “Cliff Robertson’s portrait of Charly is a sensitive, believable one,” Roger Ebert wrote in his three-star review. That said, the famed critic wasn’t the biggest fan of the film’s science fiction elements, which he deemed unnecessary.
Elsewhere, Variety noted that Robertson’s performance falters in some aspects, but soars during certain points in the movie. “Cliff Robertson seems to overdo the external manifestations of [mental disabilities], but he is excellent in the post-operative scenes. With more help from the script, he could have been a movingly tragic figure.” This wasn’t Robertson’s only time playing his “Charly” character. He previously portrayed him in a 1961 television adaptation called “The Two Worlds of Charlie Gordon,” which was included in the anthology series “The United States Steel Hour.”
