Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
2/3/10
Everybody loves a true story.
The notion that the larger-than-life adventure we see play out on the screen
actually happened speaks to the part of us that's based more of our worldview
than we realize on the things the movies have taught us. Of course,
like most real world/movie comparisons, reverence for the “true story”
can also set us up for heartbreak. When the words “Inspired by” appear
in a movie's credits, it's Caveat Emptor when it comes to believing what
you're about to see. That tension applies more than usual to Extraordinary
Measures, a nice little drama about John Crowley, a real-life pharmaceutical
executive who started his own company to develop a cure for the rare disease
that afflicted two of his children. Beyond that, separating fact
from fiction becomes dicey while the movie's leisurely pace and lack of
dramatic momentum encourage you to spend more time thinking about it than
you should. But a great cast uses its considerable charisma to good
advantage, and aficionados of courageous parent/sick kid dramas will be
in Heaven.
John (Brendan Fraser) and
Aileen (Keri Russell) Crowley are happy, loving parents with one big problem:
two of their three children suffer from a rare genetic disease that will
kill them before their ages reach double-digits. John works for a
pharmaceutical company and tirelessly sifts through papers and medical
journals looking for hope. He finds some in the work of Dr. Robert
Stonehill (Harrison Ford), a cantankerous professor who dreams up cures
his endowments won't cover developing into real medicines. After
their daughter Megan (Meredeth Droeger) nearly dies, John snaps in the
middle of a business meeting and hops on a plane to meet the Doctor in
person. He's impressed with what Stonehill tells him and makes up
a story about heading a charitable foundation that could underwriter development
of a drug. Returning home, John and Aileen throw themselves into
fundraising, but don't come close to the $500,000.00 he promised.
Still, Stonehill is impressed enough to make them a counteroffer:
he and John will create their own startup company to test and manufacture
a cure for the Crowley children and others like them. Against all
advice, the Crowleys accept that offer, but going into business with the
self-sabotaging Stonehill is only the first hurdle: it will take
money and time to make this work, and while John Crowley keeps making compromise
after compromise to get more of the former, there's nothing he can do to
slow the progression of his kids' illnesses.
On paper, nothing could be
more suspenseful than a race to save your own children, but the problem
with adapting Crowley's story to film is that his role in the tale is as
the guy who kept making the business deals it took for scientists to keep
working on the cure not doing so himself. Extraordinary Measures
isn't interested enough in the mechanics of the science or the business
to create tension with them and instead we're left to simply watch the
characters try to keep their own plates spinning until the story is finally
over. An awful lot of time is killed with repetitive scenes of Crowley
and Stonehill arguing or Stonehill pissing off his colleagues
Further complicating matters is the fact that there is no Robert Stonehill:
Ford's character is a composite of several doctors Crowley worked with,
but the veracity of so much of what happens onscreen is invalidated by
learning that fact that the movie loses considerable “true story” street
cred as a result. And yet the story feels an odd need to marginalize
its' own composite hero in the third act.
Extraordinary Measures
remains highly watchable in large part because it's so well cast.
It's hard to think of actors who radiate goodness more skillfully that
Fraser and Russell, so you can't help but root for them as the parents
who refuse to stop fighting for their kids. Ford is a master of Grumpy
Old Man comedy, and makes Stonehill always interesting to watch, even when
he's working against the story. Ford and Fraser have solid hot-cold
chemistry that helps to create the impression that we're seeing more drama
than we actually are. Droeger is a nice spunky kid, and Jared Harris
adds a lot of complexity to a superficially stock role as a corporate executive
who won't bend his bottom-line approach for the sake of any one patient.
There's not a whole lot to
say about Extraordinary Measures: it's one of those movies
I think a certain kind of Hallmark Channel audience will really love, that
cynics will really hate, and that the rest of us are left to kinda enjoy
and then immediately forget. When the end crawls refer to the cure
only as “the special medicine” and tell you what happened to Stonehill
even though he doesn't really exist, you know it's aiming for the heart
and not the head. This is a movie best enjoyed by fans of its cast
and those who can handle a movie that can't handle the truth. |
