4 stars*****
Forget the critics, the audience’s reaction tells everything. They gasped at the moments the movie’s director planned for; they cried when prompted. This movie pulled all the strings expected while remaining a quality motion picture. The fact that it’s based on a real life story makes it even stronger (yet altered where considered necessary as often happens with book to screen adaptations). It’ll be on ‘Lifetime Movies’ at some stage in the future, but don’t knock it for that.
So what’s it all about?
Brendan Fraser plays John Crowley, a biotechnology executive whose two youngest children were afflicted with Pompe disease or acid maltase deficiency. Along with his wife Aileen (Keri Russell), he raises money for research scientist Robert Stonehill (Harrison Ford), forming a company to develop a drug to save his children’s lives.
I should have read the Geeta Anand (The Cure) book first, although I’ll go and get a copy for the Kindle soon. The screenplay written by Robert Nelson Jacobs has to adapt from a ten hour read to a ninety minute movie, so changes have been made to make the story fit and cut confusion over a shorter time frame. Nevertheless, the overriding factor has to be to maintain the general feel of the manuscript.
Meredith Droeger as nine year old Megan Crowley is superb. We don’t know if her movie character shows any resemblance to her real life spirit, but if it does then she’s a miracle through adversity. I don’t believe I’d be so positive knowing the dreadful outcome to this Pompe disease I knew nothing about until last evening, but I now know is terrible almost beyond words and incredibly the life saving drugs are too expensive for most sufferers to be treated by medical insurance.
If the movie can attract discussion on drug costs, then it has achieved heights beyond entertainment.
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