Based in part on Greeta Anand's book, The Cure, Brendan Fraser takes a must deserved break from sappy family adventure films to play businessman John Crowley in a sappy family drama. John and his rarely seen wife Aileen(the lovely Keri Russell) are the parents of three kids, two of which are stricken with Pompe disease. For the purposes of story, it's proposed that kids don't live beyond the age of 9 with this disease. The Crowley's daughter, the precocious and charming Megan, is now 8 years old. So time for a potential cure is running out. Their other son with the disaease in 6 years old, but physically much weaker than Megan and probably won't even last that long.
After an emotional breakdown that nearly costs him his job, John begins an exhaustive search for a way to help his children. He discovers a scientist, a curmudgeonly old coot named Dr. Robert Stonehill(Harrison Ford). Stonehill's at the bleeding edge of research on the disease, working out of his meager labe at the University of Nebraska. Stonehill is eccentric, rough around the edges, more comfortable with his equipment than with actual people. I think he's supposed to be a source of humor for us, but apparently all that flew over my head. After some initial pains, the two go into business together for very different reasons. John is the businessman, Stonehill the scientist. Stonehill wants his own shop, John's motivation is obviously far more personal.
Or at least that's the idea. I kept waiting for there to be a real, emotional hook that would reel me into this story, but it never happened. Every moment felt false to me, and maybe that's because the story, while based partly in reality, is mostly crafted out of whole cloth to suit the actors playing the parts. In truth, Robert Stonehill is Dr. Chen....out of Duke University. Part of me is a little disappointed Harrison Ford didn't make the attempt to play a well-to-do Asian-American man, but that's just one of many of the film's let downs. The Crowleys barely register as real people. Aileen, for instance, is barely a factor and is only around it seems as a sounding board for one of her husband's ideas. John as well, is barely developed. Given nothing more to do than the scene requires at the moment. If he's needed to be a bit of a jerk, then there ya go. If he's needed to cry, then so be it. There you are.
And cry they do. I'm extremely sensitive to any film that has an expressed purpose to manipulate my emotions. Extraordinary Measures doesn't just manipulate, it crams it's fist up your back and plays you like a puppet. The children are trotted out, sullen and sunken in their expressions, shot in the most tearful way in their little wheelchairs. They are emotional props, dropped into the story whenever we need to be reminded what the stakes are. There's a brutally awful scene later in the film, where the Crowleys hold a "meet 'n greet" at a big pharmacutical company, where others afflicted with Pompe are used as exhibits in a game of Show and Tell. It's terrible and pretty uncomfortable to watch.
It wouldn't have been so bad if there had been more of a focus on the Crowleys and the genuine uphill climb they were faced with. Instead, the obstacles they face aren't exactly roadblocks, but more like worn down speed bumps. The Crowleys need to raise $500,000 dollars in a month? No problem. Show them making two or three phone calls. No big deal. They need to sell their company for a quick cash infusion? No problem. A single two minute meeting with a rival will suffice. This should've been a story that brought us more of the familial side of the problem. I wanted to see how their situation affected them as a family. I'm far less interested in the inner workings of Big Pharma, drug trials, and the like.
Afterwards, I mentioned to a colleague that this was clearly trying to be Lorenzo's Oil
. In that 1992 film with Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon, two parents go off on their own inspiring quest to fashion a cure for their dying son, who was afflicted with ALD. That story made no bones about the burden placed on the parents of a dying child, or about the true costs involved. I was also confused by the TV marketing, which drew comparisons to Sandra Bullock's recent hit, The Blind Side
. I supposed that's true if you subtract football, Sandra Bullock, a 300 pound Baltimore Raven, issues of race and social equality, and any emotional resonance whatsoever. Why, they're practically the same! I have no doubt the Crowleys story is a brave one, full of dark twists, and emotional highs 'n lows I could scarcely imagine. Too bad none of that's reflected here.
3/10
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