The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

Ah, April- one of the worst movie months of the year! It's the weird in-between of post-Oscar season, pre-summer blockbuster season. But don't despair, because platforms like HBO are here to tide us over! This past weekend, highly-anticipated "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" was released, starring Oprah Winfrey. This book spent years on the New York Times bestseller list. I remember seeing people reading it in class in high school. I remember my mom reading it years back. Despite all the hype, I was scared off by the science lingo and avoided reading it. However, there was a lot of hype around the HBO release of this film, so I thought it'd be worth the watch.

As previously mentioned, this film was based off of the book by the same title written by Rebecca Skloot. I generally have a rule that I can't watch a movie based off of the book without reading the book first, but I made an exception this time. This choice is somewhat problematic, as I cannot reflect on the accuracy of the portrayal or provide any effective commentary regarding that translation. However I can absolutely state that I was deeply moved by this film, specifically by Oprah's performance.

Before commenting on the specifics of the film, I'll give a brief summary. The movie tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a young African American woman who died of cervical cancer in the 1950s. A clump of cells extracted from her body have since changed the face of medicine- her cells were the first to never die, making them perfect subjects for scientific research. Her cells have made countless contributions in the scientific community. "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" was a revolutionary book when it came out- there have been countless documentations of "HeLa," the immortalized cells, but there had been no information released about Henrietta's life or family. The film uncovers Skloot's process towards writing the book, and identified the complexities of Henrietta's family members.

Oprah plays Henrietta's daughter, Deborah, who has been pushed to the sidelines for decades by journalists inquiring about her mothers cells. Oprah's performance, in my opinion, was the aspect of the film that allowed it to achieve the status as a great film rather than a good film. This is a complex storyline condensed into under an hour and a half film, which is problematic. Despite that issue, Oprah's performance stands out and leaves a strong emotional impact on the viewer. It is evident over the course of the film that Deborah suffers from emotional and physical ailments. Oprah did an outstanding job showcasing the severe emotional toll her mother's death took on her life. I honestly got teary-eyed at points of her emotional breakdown. She effectively demonstrated the hefty emotional weight Deborah's been carrying with her for decades.

The movie undertook many themes considering it was only 92 minutes long- these ranged from family history to race discrimination and medical ethics. This was certainly ambitious, and I think if the film had been longer it could have more deeply unpacked these issues. That being said, although it was slightly overambitious considering the time frame, I think these were presented pretty well. It would certainly be interesting to read the book having seen the film to see how it goes into further detail on these issues. The subject matter was exceptionally interesting- I think I wouldn't have been nearly invested if the emotional family struggles hadn't been intwined with the scientific aspects of the story. Certainly worth the watch!