Fat, Sick & Nearly Dead

Joe Cross is an Australian businessman. He is a hundred pounds overweight, has an autoimmune illness and is on steroids. The doctors are not putting it right. He makes a decision: for sixty days he will drink nothing but vegetable and fruit juice. He chooses to do it in America. He gets a van, a juicer and a camera. Along the road he talks to people; he asks what they eat and describes his own state. At a truck stop he meets a driver. Phil has the same illness as Joe and is in much worse condition. Joe Cross directs and is at the centre of the film. It is an Australian and American production, a documentary. Its form is a road documentary; the narrative follows Joe's own clock and his weight and blood values are measured regularly. The documentary talks to doctors too and puts medical opinion inside the narrative. The second half is not Joe's story but Phil's; the driver calls Joe months later and wants to try the same programme. The matter it treats is habit; the film gives eating not as a question of will but as an order set by surroundings. The film drew wide attention after release and sequels followed. The method it argues for is contested; a long liquid diet is not suitable for everyone and the film does not say so clearly enough. Its limit is its side; the narrative argues for one method and gives little room to the counterview. Who it is for: viewers who like health documentary and narratives of personal change. Who it is not for: it is single voiced, can read like an advertisement, and the ending is too tidy.