Lorenzo's Oil (Mike's Take)

Lorenzo’s Oil

Written by George Miller & Nick Enright

Man, what a year 1992 has been so far. We are really starting this thing off with the most uplifting movies, aren’t we? This entire movie seemed to be about fighting back against an endless torrent of hopelessness. So, a little bit of a downer.

I actually saw this movie once in high school. We watched it in my 10^th grade bio class. All I remembered from that viewing was Nick Nolte’s accent and Tommy Pickles’ voice distractingly coming out of Lorenzo’s mouth when he’s sick. I’m happy to report that I actually enjoyed this movie on a second watch.

The way the movie is structured is pretty excellent. The build-up to Lorenzo’s diagnosis was so smart and so economical. It just gets to the point and doesn’t waste my time, which is so refreshing. We see the kid playing in Africa over the opening credits, but the movie doesn’t spend a half hour showing us what a normal kid he is and I’m so thankful for that. And the pre-diagnosis movie has some striking images. Michaela holding Lorenzo down as he’s seizing all over the place hits pretty hard, and I also really like the long walk down the hospital hallway right after they hear the diagnosis for the first time. Chilling, and very real.

That brings me to one of the things I really liked. Doesn’t it feel like this movie should have had a lot more yelling and crying and other typically “Oscar-type” stuff? It’s very subdued with the exception of two moments: the fight that ends up with Michaela kicking her sister out of the house and their fight with the parents who run the Foundation. For me, at least, it made them feel like real people and less like movie characters.

In fact, my favorite scene is toward the end. It’s when Agusto is breaking it down for Michaela that even though they’ve helped Lorenzo survive, he’ll never fully recover and he asks her, “Did you ever think that all this work, all this struggling, might have been for someone else’s kid?” Then she cries. It’s the first time tears fall in this movie at all, if I remember it correctly. I just found it an effective way to hit typical “prestige movie” beats without doing so in a “prestige movie” kind of way.

And of course it has to be brought up that this movie was written by George “Motherfucking Mad Max” Miller, which is all kinds of nuts at first. This is the last movie I would have ever expected him to make, until he made the Happy Feet movies anyway, but in my research (the IMDb trivia page) I found out that Miller is actually a trained doctor. Cool! That goes a long way in this movie, since there are a lot of expected scenes of doctors explaining the illness to the Odones and, once the Odones have it figured out, them explaining it to everyone else around them. It’s unavoidable in movies like this but at least it’s all medically sound, and never comes off as phony.

Are there things that don’t work? Sure. I don’t really buy that Michaela would kick her sister out of the house, or how difficult the Foundation parents are to deal with. I’m pretty sure they are planted in there as superficial obstacles since, apart from Lorenzo’s horrific disease, the Odones don’t have many. They’re financially well-off enough to care for Lorenzo full time, and are clearly smart and capable enough to find a cure for a rare disease practically on their own. Obviously it’s too late to fully save Lorenzo, but nothing is truly standing in their way.

I don’t know, after having mostly slept through it in Mr. Collier’s class so many years ago, I actually ended up liking this movie a lot. Like I said before, Oscar Bait without ever feeling particularly Oscar-Baity. So bravo, man who made Beyond Thunderdome, well done.

Also, Laura Linney! Credited as “Young Teacher!” I love her.