Авторы фильма поднимают фундаментальный мировоззренческий вопрос: о смысле жизни человека и его предназначении.

Джордж - автослесарь, один из многих заурядностей захолустного городка, который из-за опухоли мозга обнаруживает у себя феноменальные способности, позволяющие ему полностью усваивать по несколько книг в день, применять эти знания на практике и генерировать нескончаемое количество идей. Способности, вызывающие у окружающих восхищение, страх, желание получить ценного специалиста или материал для исследования или просто желание снова увидеть фокус. А Джордж пытается донести людям, что он - лишь тот, кем мог бы быть каждый. Опухоль убивает Джорджа, но его усилия не пропадают даром. Ему удаётся сдвинуть жизнь своих друзей и соседей с мёртвой точки. Удаётся оживить в них человеческий Дух.

Ключевой сценой фильма является диалог Джорджа с доктором, предложившим ему согласиться провести исследования на живом мозге. К сожалению ни один из переводов не отражает точный смысл слов, по-этому я рекомендую изучить его в оригинале:

Doctor: I’m going to ask for your permission for my team to perform open brain surgery, but I do not want you to answer until we have had our dialog.

George: You said that this tumor was inoperable?

Doctor: I think the odds are very small, say one in five-hundred that we would be able to remove enough of the tumor to even prolong your life. What I want to explain is this would not be a life saving operation. This would be…let’s call it an expedition. This would be a voyage of discovery. You’re in a position to contribute as much to our knowledge as any man or woman who has come before you.

George: And if you were to wait and do this operation after I am done with my brain, what would that…?

Doctor: If that is what you want, yes, an autopsy is all we’ll do.

George: But that would not be as useful?

Doctor: Study of a living, active brain would tell us volumes.

George: Alright, so, if you were to do this operation, wouldn’t it most likely kill me or at least shorten my life?

Doctor: George, I’m asking you to try and see the larger picture, to realize what you have to offer to us, the ones you are leaving behind. You could be our greatest teacher, George. I can be your biographer in a sense. I could present you to the world.

George: That’s not me. That’s just my brain. Do you understand? Look Doctor, you know I may just have something to say in my last few hours. I might just have something to say.

What you are saying is that I have something to teach, and yet you’re willing to end me to study my brain under a microscope. Now, is that all I’m here for?

Doctor: What else? You’re not a scholar or a …

George: I’ll tell you what I am. I’ll tell you what I think I am…I’m what everybody can be.

Doctor: Everyone with a malignant, tentacle…

George: No. No, no. That just helped me to get here. Okay? Anybody can get here. I’m the possibility.

I think you have this desperate grasp on technology, and this grasp on science, and you don’t have a third hand left to grasp what is important.

If I had to choose between the tumor that got me here or some flash of light from an alien craft, I would choose the tumor. I would, because it is here. It’s within us. What I am talking about is the human spirit. That’s the challenge. That’s the voyage. That’s the expedition.