— Overview
A Korean social-work essay reads the film as a story of people who have lost almost everything, and of a private clinic holding on where public care does not reach.
— Contents and key concepts
A surgeon, a family cheated, a city
Roland Joffé’s City of Joy (1992), drawn from Dominique Lapierre’s novel, can be told simply: people who have lost almost everything gather, and try to help one another. Max Lowe, a surgeon from Houston, played by Patrick Swayze, comes to Calcutta after a girl dies in his operating room, hoping to fill an empty feeling. Hasari Pal, played by Om Puri, arrives with his wife Kamla, played by Shabana Azmi, and their children, after a swindler takes what they had; they live in a back alley.
Max is appalled by what he sees. He meets a woman who sells her body to keep a family alive, then is beaten and robbed by Ashoka, the son of a neighborhood godfather, played by Art Malik. The next morning he wakes in a poor clinic called Anand Nagar.
Joan’s clinic, and a police force that will not help
Joan Bethel, the woman who runs the clinic, played by Pauline Collins, asks Max to lend a hand. He refuses, and Hasari, who helped him the night before, gets him back to a hotel. When Max tries to report Ashoka, the police stop him: the father’s reach extends that far. Joan asks again. Max agrees to help the city’s only such clinic.
The godfather then wants protection money from the clinic itself. When that is refused, Ashoka moves to wreck it. Hasari resists; residents who have been treated there stand up to Ashoka, and Ashoka turns on Max as the cause of the revolt.
A flood, and a gap that a private clinic cannot close alone
Max heads for the clinic in a heavy rain. The streets flood. Hasari’s people pull him from the water, and the film ends there. A Korean social-work essay is tempted, at one point, to liken the city to a dark age of factory owners and the hungry poor; the likening is loose, and the sharper point in the same essay is closer to the plot.
There is no law on screen that actually protects the weak, and the police are captured by the same power that extracts “protection.” Joan’s clinic is a private effort — a person, not a ministry, keeping a shelter open. Neighbors gather around it because they have nowhere else. The same Korean essay, at its full length, is on CampusDown.
Sources
- A student account of Roland Joffé’s 1992 film City of Joy, from Dominique Lapierre, following Max Lowe, Hasari Pal, and Joan Bethel’s clinic in Calcutta.
Last updated 15 November 2026
Frequently asked questions
Who made City of Joy, and from what book?
Roland Joffé directed the 1992 film, from Dominique Lapierre’s novel. Patrick Swayze plays Max Lowe, a surgeon from Houston; Om Puri plays Hasari Pal; Pauline Collins plays Joan Bethel, who runs a clinic.
How do Max and Hasari meet the clinic?
Max comes to Calcutta after a girl dies on his operating table, carrying guilt. Hasari’s family, cheated of what they had, end up in a back alley. After Ashoka, a godfather’s son, beats Max and takes his money, Max wakes in the Anand Nagar clinic. He first refuses Joan’s request for help, then changes his mind when even the police side with the godfather.
What social point does a Korean essay take from the ending?
The godfather demands protection money; Ashoka strikes at the clinic; residents who have been treated there push back. In a flood, Hasari’s people pull Max from the water. The essay treats Joan’s clinic as private welfare filling a public gap, not as a medieval fable.
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