Lorenzo's Oil

The Odones' five-year-old son Lorenzo is diagnosed with adrenoleukodystrophy, an untreatable disease that strips the nervous system fast. The doctors give him two years. With no medical training, Augusto and Michaela Odone shut themselves in libraries, start reading the papers, sit in on conferences and eventually propose their own answer: a compound that lowers certain fatty acids. George Miller directed. Nick Nolte plays Augusto and Susan Sarandon plays Michaela. The story is true. What is most argued over is the ending. The closing section hails the compound as a miracle. That angered scientists and families affected by ALD alike, both saying the film played with people's hope. In 1992, when it came out, it was not known whether lowering very long chain fatty acids had actually helped Lorenzo or anyone else. Miller was not troubled by that and drew the ALD specialists as people more interested in science than in the welfare of their patients. It received two Academy Award nominations. The picture years later is more complicated. The Odones did not cure a disease single-handed and the oil has real limits. Against that, they forced the scientific community to take ALD seriously, contributed to a treatment that has kept some boys healthy, and left families facing rare diseases the idea that they could enter the research themselves. Lorenzo outlived every medical prediction and died the day after his thirtieth birthday. Who it is for: viewers who want stories of medical struggle and the performances by Sarandon and Nolte. Who it is not for: anyone who will question how the film treats medicine. It builds the doctors as the obstacle, and that choice is still criticised.