Lorenzo's Oil (1992) on Netflix
Lorenzo Odone, a boy in the Comoro Islands, moves with his parents to the United States. Doctors diagnose ALD, fatal within two years, and Augusto and Michaela begin searching for a cure.
- Netflix3.7/5
- IMDb7.3/1025,684 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes92%
Trailer
Plot summary
Augusto Odone's post with the World Bank keeps the family in the Comoro Islands, where his son Lorenzo is a healthy, outgoing boy. After they relocate to the United States, Lorenzo starts to fall, lose his hearing and throw tantrums, and tests identify adrenoleukodystrophy, or ALD, a rare degenerative brain disorder that is fatal within two years. No doctor the Odones consult can treat it, and the support group they join offers little hope. Augusto and Michaela refuse to accept that. They work in medical libraries, study animal experiments, question researchers and doctors worldwide, and enlist Professor Nikolais. Scientists doubt that laypeople can add anything, yet the parents keep at it.
Cast
- Colin Wardas Jake Gimble
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lorenzo's Oil (1992)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Hugo Moser, the man on whom the character of Professor Nikolais was based, called the film's portrayal of him "an abomination".
- Possibly to emphasize that a cure could affect families anywhere, many smaller roles went to inexperienced actors and non-actors. The poet James Merrill was noticed by a casting director at a New York public reading of his poetry, and his rarefied cadences were used for a questioning doctor.
- The film was criticized for falsely painting a picture of a miracle cure: later research has not clearly proven Lorenzo's oil effective in treating ALD after its onset, though it did prevent the onset of ALD in two-thirds of the susceptible boys.
- Lorenzo's Oil was a commercial failure, grossing $7,286,388 domestically against a budget of around $30 million, less than a quarter of what the film cost to make.
SPOILER
The actual subject of the film, Lorenzo Odone, died of pneumonia in May 2008 at the age of 30, having lived two decades longer than doctors originally predicted.
