Lorenzo's Oil (1992)

Simply A Masterpiece

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

OK so this is my first time writing a review. I have recently noticed a huge amount of overly high ratings on the formerly reliable IMDb. For this reason I think that more reviews and ratings are needed to rectify this :/ I chose this movie with high hopes and hoped it would be like many of the inspiring greats from before the 2000's. I looked beyond the average rating of 7.2 and wondered if the story wasn't perfect perhaps the acting would be. From the beginning I was drawn in, but confused...the native with the knife...looks strange..is there more to this film than a disease and hope? Was the child cursed or something? OK I knew that wasn't going to be the case because I looked up the true story beforehand. Anyway, the native turned out to be lovely... I thought I was in for an emotional journey with this one..not so much.. It ain't nice to say but Lorenzos' crying noise was basically Tommy from Rugrats...over and over..which was distracting to say the least. Also, I know this is true but it seemed annoyingly unbelievable so I started to zone out...Noltes as the father was believable in his acting but having a dream with the solution? Much too dramatic...the white-board and extensive reading though, very believable, the urgency and desperation is admirable in the extensive research and you can see they are on the verge of a breakthrough...not with a helpful dream though.. annoying. Sarandon is great as always, wide-eyed with fear and fury. She is the perfect hopeful, desperate and adoring mother and you can't help but admire her strength and determination. However, the performance was just as I predicted it would be. That's not a bad thing...but not spectacular either. I would like to rate it 7.3, you will not be let down, but also will not feel uplifted either. The .3 is for the acting.

Lorenzo's Oil (I gotta finda a cure for mya boy!) (1992)In 1984, Lorenzo Odone was diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD,) in which enzymes that break down saturated fats are defective, and which severely affects myelin in the central nervous system. This resulted in the immediate commitment of his parents, Augusto and Michaela, to find a credible cure for the otherwise fatal disease.The story is the basic retelling of the events, with the occasionally added personal strife's of the parents, who's accuracy has been neither confirmed of denied by the real Augusto or Michaela. The plot has a quite generic outline, but boasts a more or less true story of a boy's disease that is not bombarded with other unnecessary sub-plots, which makes the effort quite admirable. However, there is the sub-plot were we see the physical and emotional decline of Michaela, but this is necessary to the story process because it provides us with good character development for Michaela and Augusto and gives us more insight on what they comprehend throughout the trial. By far the greatest thing about the film is the incredible knowledge of what it's subject matters are. The film takes with great precaution to explain to the viewer each and every procedure they try to the vocabulary that they learned, and exactly how they manage to devise the concoction of "Lorenzo's oil." However, I find aspects like the main antagonistic characters and some of the story to be crammed in the space of 110 minutes. The antagonists of the film seem to fall into the cliché of being overly arrogant and dismissive towards the underdog protagonists who try to help the cause, examples of this shows in the scenes of the APD parent meetings, where the board is unwilling to accept change unless doctoral consensus is advised. Plus there are some scenes at the end that were rushed because of time, we go from age 10 to 14 in only ten minutes, and rushes the progress of the recovery. Now the acting is also impressive, but sometimes can be unintentionally comical. To start off, Susan Surandon is impeccable as the mother, she really puts all of her effort into this role and she pulled off the vigilant motherly character with ease; you could honestly believe she that she genuinely cared for the actor playing Lorenzo. Then we find ourselves with Nick Nolte as the Italian-American father, Augusto. (sigh) Although his effort is noble, you should probably never hire a person from Omaha to play an Italian with a full-on accent. Now granted his performance is not terrible, but there were moments where I had to chuckle under my breath. In conclusion, Lorenzo's Oil is a flawed, but nevertheless enjoyable depiction of the journey to find the "impossible" cure. "Lorenzo's Oil" is a pretty good film, no masterpiece, but decent.See Full review at [email protected]

An inspiring true-life account of a husband and wife who, out of desperation, discover a treatment for their son's disease that otherwise had been dismissed by the medical community as untreatable.This is Lifetime movie stuff, and at any number of moments the film threatens to topple over into the overly maudlin and treacly. But it mostly avoids those pitfalls thanks largely to Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon, who play the mom and dad and who make this film worth watching. Sarandon's role is a bit more stock, that of the suffering mother. But Nolte is ferocious as a man with an obsession, literally racing the clock to save his little boy.Will probably never be considered a great film, but is at least a pretty good one.Grade: B

An inspirational film, great performances by Susan Sarandon and Nick Nolte, both were worth of Academy Award nominations, Sarandon was and Nolte was unfortunately in a very tough crowd of actors that year and didn't make the cut. Still I think it's Nolte's best performance I have ever seen. The film deals with both parents dealing with their child's illness in very different ways but both loving their child equally. The supporting cast does a good job with their material and add to the emotion of the story at a few points. It was great to learn of this being a true story and the information given to the audience right before the credits. I would love to find out some kind of current day update on the situation of things as the film only cover several years afterwords.