Review of Lorenzo's Oil (1992) by Dannielle A — 07 Feb 2011

A true story about two determined parents who fight to find a cure for their son Lorenzo who has been diagnosed with a rare terminal illness. I found the movie quite boring sometimes when talking about the technical scientific parts of the disease but other times I found myself filled with tears during emotional and heartwarming moments.

This movie was very inspiring. However, it could have been a lot better. For one thing, I felt like I was listening to Tommy Pickles' baby gurgling the whole time which was very annoying and distracted me.

(This is because Elizabeth Daily played Lorzenzo's heavy breathing. She is also the voice of Tommy Pickles on the Nickelodeon TV show "Rugrats.") Also, sometimes the movie was so technical, it would appeal to someone with a scientific mind and lose people who have less interest in the science and more in the relationships.

The acting was really good in this movie and I was very impressed with Zack O'Malley Greenburg's acting. He must have been QUITE a child actor or maybe he really did have a disease. He also spoke different languages! Wow.

There was also a slightly heavy-handed scene where the father falls down the stairs and starts tearing at his shirt. This was bizarre and concerning but maybe a parent really would act like that if he knew his son would probably die and there wasn't much he could do about it.

The best part of this movie was seeing the love that Lorenzo's parents had for him, and watching his mother Michaela reading to him and talking to him as a human being, not a vegetable, even though he was incapacitated and couldn't respond without blinking his eyes and moving his pinky finger.