Maybe because I thought it was an adaptation but
I did not like this movie at all. The only good part in this movie for me was Cliff Robertson, he did a really good job with his mannerisms. He really did seem like a different person before and after the operation. I watched the movie because of Flowers for Algernon but it only shares names and the basic premise with the book. The movie doesn't really show any understanding of the book. The movie is almost 2 hours long, and yet everything seems so rushed. Ideas are thrown at you but we don't really experience them. In the book changes are gradual at first and the process speeds up. In the movie everything just happens, he gets an operation and becomes a genius. Then just as quickly he loses it, like literally in the middle of a sentence.
The movie also really missed out on showing the intellectual and emotional implications shown in the novel. In the novel Charly has an intellectual awakening. He becomes so smart that he passes everyone up. This leads him to see that people all have a limit to what they know. Because of this he feels people are like frauds, pretending to be something they are not. It angers him scientists only know about certain things. On the emotional side his intelligence quickly and vastly surpasses his emotional understanding. He can not relate to people or understand them. As he becomes a genius, he is not even at the level of an adolescent, emotionally speaking. The idea of love is not one that he can truly understand until almost the very end.
In the movie, ugh they just throw a love story at us without reason. I mean what in the movie can explain why his teacher would fall in love with him. She just does. It shows Charly become sexually awakened, then he is forceful on her, leaves and seems to develop relationships with many women, and comes back and they are in love. It really makes no sense, even ignoring the novel.