Lorenzo's Oil
by George Miller
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Actor: Gerry Bamman, Kathleen Wilhoite, Nick Nolte, Peter Ustinov, Susan SarandonDirector: George Miller
Brand: Universal Studios
Producer: George Miller
Writer: George Miller
Producer: Arnold Burk
Producer: Daphne Paris
Producer: Doug Mitchell
Producer: Johnny Friedkin
Writer: Nick Enright
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); Italian (Original Language)
Format: Color, DVD, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 129 minutes
Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Studio: Universal Studios
DVD Reviews of Lorenzo's Oil
DVD Review: Lorenzo's gold!
Summary: 5 Stars
With a heartbreaking real life story of the Odone family, director-producer George Miller created one of the most touching and emotional drama's ever to grace the big screen. With an all star cast, most notably Susan Surandon in her oscar nominated role, he paints a very real picture of grief, pain, struggle and passion as the Odone's cope with the tragic desease that has attacked their son Lorenzo.
Lorenzo was only five when he showed the first symptoms of ALD, a very rare and very deadly desease that attacks your central nervous system by destroying your myelin. It deteriorates your brain at a rapid pace and, in affect, makes you crazy and immoble before taking your life. It's a desease that only manifest's itself in young boys usually between the ages of 5 & 10 and it's given to them only by the mother, for only mothers are carriers. The desease, at the time of this instance which was the early 80's, was not very understood and so there was no hope laid out to the Odone family, just a list of horrible things their son would undergo before his death. His life expectancy alone was only 24 months.
The Odone family, husband Augusto (Nick Nolte) and wife Michaela (Susan Surandon) decide to take matters into their own hands, doing emmence research to find answers to questions, answer none of the scientist and doctors seem to have. No one even knows why this desease does what it does. As the Odone's work and work to find a cure their son steadily gets worse and worse. The Odone's are forced with moral issues as they confront the head's of an ALD support group, grappling the issue of their childrens well-being. The question is raised a few times as to whether it's just or even humane for the parents to try and prolong their childs suffering. Is it selfish to want your child with you always if they are in constant pain? You have two extremes, and this film addresses both of them with equal ammounts of compasion. You have the Odone's who want to save their child, and rightfully so for no one wants to lose thier children, but then you have other families that just want god to end their childs pain, and rightfully so for no one wants their children to suffer.
This is one of the hardest films to watch, especially if you have children for it forces you to contemplate what you would do, and that's not a question you want to ask yourself.
The Odone's were a very brave and very strong couple, who never allowed their situation to get the better of them. Yes, they were human and they went through stages, they were crushed and they were hurt and they were dieing little by little every day as they watched the love of their life deteriorate into nothing, but they held it together for their son. As his condition worsend it appeared as if they would never find answers in time, and as Aususto noted to his wife, all they were doing was probably being done for someone elses child, but that god for that for it's because of them that this desease is better understood and that there is a cure, or at least help.
Lorenzo's oil refers to the oil taken to help balance the bodies distribution of saturated fats that are killing ALD patients. Lorenzo's oil is helping hundreds of children with this horrible desease and it's thanks to this beautiful family who sacrificed everything they had to make sure another family would have the answers they needed!
I wanted to make special note of Susan Surandon's performance here. She completly commanded the screen. I've always loved her and felt that she was one of, if not the best actress we have working today for no matter what the role she takes on she always leaves me stunned. With this performance though I was especially drawn in. She does so much with just the look in her eyes. The scene when the doctor tells them this desease is passed on only through the mother, the look in her face, the fear and guilt and self-loathing in her eyes, you almost want to hold her and tell her it's not her fault. Susan captured the emotions of her charactor PERFECTLY and left me with goosebumps. Now Nolte is another story. He kind of annoyed me. Sorry people, but I'm Italian, and he sounded more Russian than anything else. Bad accent. Anyways, as far as his tortured father went, sometime he was little overboard, but for the most part he did well since he was the more stable more controlled parent who was trying to keep some sense of sanity in the house, but towards the end when he goes a little off his rocker he gets a little mad-scientist-crazy. But don't let that deture you from this gem of a film.
Highly recommended but viewer beware, this is a hearttugging, heartbreaking, tearjerking assult of the senses kinda film. Just a warning.
Description of Lorenzo's Oil
LORENZO'S OIL - DVD MovieWith this powerful 1992 drama, director-producer George Miller (The Road Warrior) proved that a movie about a disease doesn't have to be a typical disease-of-the-week movie. Based on the real-life case of the Odones family, the story concerns 5-year-old Lorenzo, suffering mightily from an apparently incurable and degenerative brain illness called A.L.D. His parents, an economist (Nick Nolte) and a linguist (Susan Sarandon), refuse to accept the received wisdom that there is no hope, and set about learning biochemistry to pursue a cure on their own. The film becomes an intriguing scientific mystery mixed with a story of pain, grief, and the strain on the two adults. In other words, Lorenzo's Oil is similar to all those medical-mayhem TV flicks but with some key differences: a pair of great actors in Sarandon and Nolte--who actually do some of the finest work of their careers here--and Miller's bold and typically inventive direction. Miller, a doctor himself, refuses to shirk from the chaos and horrors of a child's agony, and he makes us hear the death chains rattling behind images that would be purely sentimental in another director's hands. --Tom Keogh
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