| I saw Lorenzo's Oil over the weekend and I really disliked it a lot. In fact,
this movie has refined the way I think about bad movies.
Normally I use a 5 star system for rating movies:
5 stars - perfectly made, changed my way of thinking on some issue
4 stars - perfectly made, entertaining
3 stars - well made, hung together but had some flaws
2 stars - had it's good moments but choppy and didn't hang together
I've been using this rating system for several years, but until now I never
really had a chance to distinguish between a movie that would get one star
versus a movie that would get no stars at all. Thanks to Lorenzo's Oil, I now
understand what a movie needs to get completely shut out.
If a movie didn't hang together at all and had no good moments, that would be
a one star movie. It would be a boring experience, but Lorenzo's Oil actually
went beyond that. Not only were there no good moments, but most of the scenes
were so painful to watch it was actually a miserable experience. In fact,
maybe they owe me a few stars back in return for the aggravation of having
to sit through 2 1/2 hours of pain and misery.
Another thought has to do with individual recognition. After all, Susan
Sarandon has been nominated for an Oscar for best actress. Again, this gets me
into an area I haven't considered when assigning responsibility to a movie. The
question here is not so much who should get an Oscar or who should get a
Golden Globe, but rather, who has committed a felony and who has committed
a misdemeanor. Ok, not really, but it did cross my mind.
I'll put a spoiler in here because I realize some don't like to hear anything
about the film. I won't reveal the ending so if you don't mind hearing me gripe
about the way the story is presented, you won't have the ending spoiled.
SEMI-SPOILER
Lorenzo's Oil is based on the real life experience of a couple who find out
their child has an incurable disease. It goes on to tell the story about the
courage they show and pain they endure in trying to care for their child and to
find a cure for his illness. That's fine, I have no problem with that.
The problem here is that they spent far too much time, dragging the audience
through each moment of pain, each moment of horror. For example, they wanted us
to understand that the child had lost his ability to swallow and had to have
his throat cleared of all moisture and that even then he would occasionally
choke anyway.
Ok, one or two scenes of the screaming choking terrified child and worried
nurse and parents scrambling to revive him would have made the point. We didn't
have to sit through it 10 times.
The mother was devoted to her child and would blow a fuse any time that anyone
pointed out that her child had no chance to survive. Ok, seeing her go ballistic
once or twice would have been plenty, but 5 or 6 screaming fits was a few too
many. Did we really have to see her blow up at both nurses? One would have
done.
The father, played by Nick Noltie (it's hardly worth mentioning the bad
Italian accent) would encourage his wife to do the research. Again the scenes
were done repeatedly. Doctors were always shown as cold hearted and sometimes
incompetent. Again, a sledge hammer was used to show this over and over and
over again, often with emotional blasts from the mother.
About half way through the movie, as the child seemed to be doing very
poorly, one doctor said to the father "I don't think he will have to suffer
much longer". Unfortunately he did, and so did the rest of us.
That being said, obviously there are many who saw this movie very differently
than I did. Perhaps we are returning to the days of Greek Tragedy when
audiences loved watching misery and pain. My personal feeling was that Susan
Sarandon walked through her part using formula weeping and moaning that could
have been done by any half decent college actress, but because so many people
loved the film and because she's over due, she is probably a favorite to win
the Oscar for this performance.
This story could have been told much better by way of a 20 minute spot on
a TV magazine show. For those interested, perhaps a full hour on Nova or
the Health Cable channel would have been appropriate, but doing a dramatic
feature length movie was the wrong way to go.
And we haven't even gotten in to the claim that the movie is inaccurate.
Rumor has it that it really was a doctor that discovered the oil, the parents
just pushed for FDA approval.
Shutout, no stars. Worst movie I've sat through since Love Story.
George
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| Thanks God someone else hated this movie! I thought it was one big,
long, painful soap opera without the soap. I thought Sarandon was a
very unsympathetic character and couldn't figure out why; wasn't she a
suffering mother? But there was something about her that made me
angry! And Nick Nolte who is an excellent actor, cannot do Italian
accents, I'm sorry. I thought the kid was the best one, and after
reading about how Sarandon treated him on the set, I had a hard time
believing her chemistry with him.
Dark, dreary, depressing ...
Leslie
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| I have to say overall I enjoyed this film. Anyone know how
closely it followed the true story? The over kill of several
things (mentioned in .1's spoiler warning so I won't repeat)
led me to believe it was following a true story very close
to the actual events (like from a diary). If everything was
true, the couple really were amazing in finding the oils.
I don't have a child, but if I did, news that my child only
has so long to live sounds ten times worse than having a
child die suddenly.
BTW, very good performance by the younger Lorenzo.
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