The Cure

Erik is eleven, lives with his mother and nobody in the neighbourhood will play with him. Dexter, in the next garden, contracted AIDS from a transfusion and is not allowed out. The two become friends talking across the fence. A newspaper reports that a doctor in New Orleans has found a cure. The boys decide to go there along the river. The subject is not illness but children coping with adult fear. Dexter's mother is shunned in the neighbourhood and Erik's mother tries to keep her son away; the boys do not understand the fear, which is exactly why they can stand side by side. The form is built on a river journey. A raft, riverside towns, camps at night; the narrative runs in the shape of a classical children's adventure. The film places death inside that template. It was made in the mid-nineties, when public fear of AIDS was still high. Its function was as much to show that contact was not dangerous as to inform; that didactic structure is plainly visible now. Joseph Mazzello plays Dexter, Brad Renfro plays Erik and Annabella Sciorra the mother. Peter Horton directs. Who it is for: viewers who like drama built on friendship between children. Who it is not for: anyone uncomfortable with emotional manipulation; the film does it openly in its final section.