How Important is Degree?. Review on Something the Lord Made Movie

The last time I watched such an intense, intelligent movie was Lorenzo’s Oil starring Nick Nolte and Susan Sarandon as the helpless parents finding whatever help possible to get

their son cured from ALD, a disease wherein the child suffers from eventual brain damage. Both parents being educated enough, not in medicine though, start questioning doctors, researchers, scientists on anything and everything about the disease. The way they adjust their lifestyle to convince the support groups/society around and get past the bureacratic hurdles in an effort to get their son cured is heart moving.

In their desperation to find a solution to the disease, both the parents e

Something the Lord Made

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ven start educating themselves in subjects like chemistry, biology, neurology, genetics, etc.

Do not miss Lorenzo’s Oil if you come across. Or if you can find one to rent/own, even better. MS does not even have this movie in its listing.:-(

In any case, this review is about the Something The Lord Made.

This movie is based on a true story about two men who revolutioned surgical techniques. One is a young ambitious surgeon and a white(Alfred Blalock played by Alan Rickman) while the other is an even younger skilled carpenter turned janitor turned lab technician and a black(Vivien Thomas played by Mos Def).

Blalock comes across Viven while Vivien is browsing through medical books in his Lab. During his initial interactions, Blalock figures out that Vivien has enough theorotical knowhow to pursue experiments on his own and that Vivien has been saving money for the past few years to go back to pursue his dream of attending a medical college. Blalock offers Vivien a job as lab technician so as to use Vivien’s knowledge in his own experiments. During the course, Vivien impresses Blalock so much with his out of the box surgical techniques for their experiments that Blalock soon realises that he would be handicapped without the services of Vivien alongside so much so that Blalock refuses to accept an offer from a hospital which denied job to Vivien.

And then the great depression happens and Vivien loses all his money in a bank kept aside for his medical studies.

Later, Blalock is offered the job of chief surgeon in Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore to which place he offers a job to Vivien as his lab assistant. With no viable option left and basically as Vivien is interested in what he was doing with Blalock, Vivien eventually moves with Blalock to Johns Hopkins University.

He has to go through the racist treatment in Johns Hopkins University, first due to his colored skin while second as he was working with one of the top surgeons of their times. At Johns hopkins, they are approached by another paediatrician who reports of the blue babies and their heart disease which needs a revolutionary surgery. Vivien and Doctor Blalock come out with techniques of performing such a complicated surgery with their unique tools and stiches which would last for years to come.

As mentioned before, Vivien is the skilled result oriented technician who each time comes to Doctor Blalock’s rescue and so when the first suregery on a blue baby is being performed, Doctor Blalock refuses to perform an operation(which is being watched by all the esteemed from the medical world) without Vivien on his side defying all the norms of the Hospital. Remember, Vivien is still a lab technician and not a Doctor and allowing anybody other than Doctor inthe theatre is/was a strict no and that too a Black one. However, the operation is successful and together they make history. But all the credit goes to Blalock even though it is not his fault and they fall apart.

Vivien leaves Blalock and tries to go back to College at the age of 35 years where he is asked to take credits right from freshman english, social sciences, etc. He believes that the only way he can make name of himself is by becoming a doctor himself.

What happens in the end? Does he get to become a Doctor and is Blalock able to pursue what he and Vivien started as a team?

One of the dialogues that touched me was:

Vivien after having completed performing an experiment on a dog to let the flow of blood to the lungs through a bypass artery, his eyes are closed and he is trying to feel something. That’s when another doctor stops by and frantically asks him "what are you doing? You are not even looking at the open heart?"’ Vivien calmly replies, "Its like you enter your bedroom in the dark but you can still feel the things. I know what I am feeling around the heart."

Another one:

On the request of the parents of the first blue baby patient, a Church Padre approaches Doctor  Blalock to convince him that the Lord had made this to the girl and the Doctor should not make a mistake and halt the operation. To which, Doctor Blalock replies. "The Lord made the mistake and I am trying to cure it."

There are some more wonderful dialogues like the above ones. Hats off to the scriptwriter.

Alan Rickman as the respected doctor with shades of arrogance and ambition within the daayras of the burecracy around is excellent. Yes, he commands even more respect than his characters in Harry Potter series. While Vivien as the hardworking, gentle family man suited pretty well.

Overall, an excellent movie and definitely worth the recommendation.