Mrs. Margaret Gey The best part of the movie is the credits in the begnining - edgy, informative quickly telling the history of the cells. Because she was the only topic of the story, not the actual story, except a few glimpses.
I love Rose Byrne but her character was clearly just a sidekick and there was NO chemistry with Ms. O, I wonder if they even got along during filming? You can definitely see Oprah's influence on what was going to be in the screenplay. As Rebecca Sloot, she had to maintain an inquisitive approach while maintaining a sensitive accord with the diverse personalities of the Lacks family.
The focus of this movie was on the writer's difficulties with the children of Henrietta Lacks and their various mental and emotional problems. This a powerful story, and I disagree with the other reviewer both about its alleged pointlessness but also that it should have been set entirely in the context of Henrietta's life. Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly leads an unexpected fight against the Equal Rights Amendment movement during the 1970s. An African-American woman becomes an unwitting pioneer for medical breakthroughs when her cells are used to create the first immortal human cell line in the early 1950s.
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Watchers who want to see the scientific side of the story will be disappointed.
17 of 23 people found this review helpful.
Unfortunately the focus is a bit off. Watch the first trailer for Sacha Baron Cohen's latest, Borat Subsequent Moviefilm.
Rose Byrne did a great job, as always, as the writer of the book, and Oprah was heartpoundingly good as Lacks' troubled daughter.
More needed to be shown on the effects and use of her cells on medical science apart from a brief blast at the beginning. The story line does not even break the surface of what her cells did to help create cures for. If you're willing to see it as a story of Lacks' personal, not scientific, legacy, I think you'll find the movie transcendent, as I did.
Back in 2011, Rebeccas Skloot published "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" and I read this excellent book. Instead, there are meandering discussions among Henrietta's very annoying relatives (in the movie; I don't know what they're like in real life) about random parts of her life. Winfrey was amazingly good in her role...but this plot line seemed to be THE film at times and if you want to learn more about Henrietta as well as what made her cancer cells so important, I suggest you just read the book. The move, on the other hand, is a family drama with the cells as a prop.
When Lacks was four years old in 1924, her mother died giving birth to her tenth child. Henrietta Lacks was born Loretta Pleasant on August 1, 1920, in Roanoke, Virginia, to Eliza and Johnny Pleasant.
The editing was disjointed and parts of the story seemed to be missing, jumping from one emotion or conversation to another with no explanation.
View production, box office, & company info, Chadwick Boseman’s Final Film, Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom, Reveals First Look, See Chadwick Boseman and Viola Davis in First Look at Netflix’s ‘Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom’, ‘Three-Body Problem’ Series From David Benioff, D.B. Use the HTML below. Not worth your time or efforts to absorb this lousy film. Oprah just wanted another big part and she is the executive producer so most of the show is hers. Not worth your time watching, Successfully makes Ms.
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I had high expectations for this movie but was so disappointed with the "Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks".
I have not read the book, so I don't know how well the film depicted the book.
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Sad.
The review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes gave the film an approval rating of 65%, based on 31 reviews, with an average rating of 6.5/10. (as Karen Reynolds).
Again the money went elsewhere.
I remember that proposal in Science about the cells deserving another species designation--and being dismayed by that myself. Her character is only allowed to overreact and perpetually have a deer-in-the-headlights expression.
That's what like this film. This movie is no such about Ms Lacks and her incredible contribution to science as it as about a crazy, bickering, over the top dysfunctional family.
With Renée Elise Goldsberry, Sylvia Grace Crim, Reed Birney, Karen Wheeling Reynolds.
Plus the subject is interesting. I watched this show for the smiling and lovely Rose Byrne.
It is like you watched 'Infamous' or 'Capote', instead of 'In Cold Blood'. it prompts discussions about the ethical issue of the cells. More needed to be shown on the effects and use of her cells on medical science apart from a brief blast at the beginning. There's something not quite right about that to my mind. I was happy to see it become an HBO film.
It should b more of Rose Byrne's, the writer of the book about Henrietta Lacks. This FAQ is empty. It's about the heartbreak her family has to live with everyday, without her, in a world full of people who (for the most part) seem more interested in making money from her than who she was or what she left behind. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (TV Movie 2017) cast and crew credits, including actors, actresses, directors, writers and more. the movie should have been about Henrietta Lacks, and (B.) I'd have to say my viewing of the picture was worthwhile, but agree with a lot of other reviewers here that the narrative was more about the legacy of Henrietta Lacks and the effect on her family's fortunes following her death.
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This is a good, nay amazing if troubling, real-life story drawn into George C. Wolfe's film from the book of the same name by Rebecca Skloot - and it is the efforts made by Skloot (here played by Rose Byrne) to put the book together in cooperation with family members that feature in the film, albeit aided by (slightly less compelling) flashbacks to the earlier life of Henrietta Lacks - the woman whose endlessly-reproducing cancer cell-line (called "HeLa") formed the basis for a whole host of medical studies, first at Johns Hopkins University, then around the world.
George C. Wolfe would direct the film, with Winfrey taking the role of Lacks' daughter Deborah.
people differ; I thought the movie was superb! [5] After several weeks of shooting in Atlanta, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks began filming in Baltimore in September, 2016.
[2] In July, Rose Byrne was cast as Rebecca Skloot, the author of the book about Henrietta, who befriends Deborah while reporting on her mother's life,[3] and Renée Elise Goldsberry was cast as the titular Henrietta Lacks. [10], The film was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Television Movie at the 69th Primetime Emmy Awards held September 17, 2017. I liked the idea of the story but it continued into nowheres-ville.
Much of the story is really about Deborah Lacks and the journalist who researched the story, effectively portrayed by Rose Byrne. I do not agree.I think the time I spent watching was well worth it.