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Movie Review: AUDREY'S CHILDREN (2024)
She jumped in the pool and the Surgeon General noticed
Natalie Dormer stars as Dr. Audrey Evans, the "Mother of Neuroblastoma," in Ami Canaan Mann's eye-opening Audrey's Children.
AUDREY’S CHILDREN (2024) Ami Canaan Mann. Writer: Julia Fisher Farbman / Cinematographer: Jon Keng (2.35:1) / Designer: Amber Unkle / Editor: Matthew Ramsey / Clancy Brown’s Stand-In: John Martineau / Cast: Natalie Dormer, Jimmi Simpson, Clancy Brown, Brandon Michael Hall, Julianna Layne / Distributor: Blue Harbor Entertainment / Rated: PG / Length: 110 mins.
Audrey’s Children joins the ranks of fact-based feminist Hollywood biopics (Norma Rae, Erin Brockovich, Hidden Figures) that have at their core world-altering female characters, all deserving of household name status, who, were it not for the movies, wouldn’t have been remembered long enough to be forgotten.
File footage sets the scene: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 1969, the first day on the job for British-born Dr. Audrey Evans (Natalie Dormer). A chemotherapy specialist, she would spend the next 20 years as chair of the Division of Oncology. Before Dr. Evans arrived on the scene, scientists approached cancer armed mostly with an optimistic outlook. Radiation treatment remained a hard sell. She was a woman of action, a house on fire with enough stamina and ability to get the patriarchy to see things her way. Her bedside manner was as extraordinary as her findings: a rabbit played canary in the coal mine, proving to a young patient (Julianna Layne) that nothing will happen to the bunny (or her) after being exposed to radiation.
Video:
Trailer: Audrey's Children
Was it a reckless impulse or a courageous commitment to move forward that drove her? An irresistible force in these otherwise dreary environs, Dr. Evans had the temerity to chuck the hospital rulebook and apply chemotherapy agents in unapproved combinations to a 7-year-old cancer patient.
It was Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Clancy Brown) who brought Evans into the fold. A scene in which Evans interrupts Koop's morning swim with an attention-getting jump in the pool provided the producers with a bang-up clip to accompany the star on the talk show circuit.
What elevates this from the spate of TV-bred biopics — the ones that clog multiplex arteries for the last three months of the year in order to qualify for Awards season — is Dormer’s performance, which is neither impersonation nor a composite of pay-attention-to-me overstatement. Like the aforementioned bunny in the coalmine, the most toxic masculinity is no match for the actress' determination.
There is, however, something askew about the period recreation. On more than one occasion, the anachronisms pulled me out of the action. It's 1969, but everything from the women’s daytime dresses and hairstyles to the bow ties on the men suggests the previous decade. The only thing I know about cars is how to drive one, and yet I could even spot the showroom-new '50s roadsters in the crowd. A minor complaint in an otherwise compelling tale of someone we should know. ***
Here's something you might be interested in.
Movie Review: AUDREY'S CHILDREN (2024)
She jumped in the pool and the Surgeon General noticed
Movie Review: AUDREY'S CHILDREN (2024)
She jumped in the pool and the Surgeon General noticed
Natalie Dormer stars as Dr. Audrey Evans, the "Mother of Neuroblastoma," in Ami Canaan Mann's eye-opening Audrey's Children.
AUDREY’S CHILDREN (2024) Ami Canaan Mann. Writer: Julia Fisher Farbman / Cinematographer: Jon Keng (2.35:1) / Designer: Amber Unkle / Editor: Matthew Ramsey / Clancy Brown’s Stand-In: John Martineau / Cast: Natalie Dormer, Jimmi Simpson, Clancy Brown, Brandon Michael Hall, Julianna Layne / Distributor: Blue Harbor Entertainment / Rated: PG / Length: 110 mins.
Audrey’s Children joins the ranks of fact-based feminist Hollywood biopics (Norma Rae, Erin Brockovich, Hidden Figures) that have at their core world-altering female characters, all deserving of household name status, who, were it not for the movies, wouldn’t have been remembered long enough to be forgotten.
File footage sets the scene: Children's Hospital of Philadelphia, 1969, the first day on the job for British-born Dr. Audrey Evans (Natalie Dormer). A chemotherapy specialist, she would spend the next 20 years as chair of the Division of Oncology. Before Dr. Evans arrived on the scene, scientists approached cancer armed mostly with an optimistic outlook. Radiation treatment remained a hard sell. She was a woman of action, a house on fire with enough stamina and ability to get the patriarchy to see things her way. Her bedside manner was as extraordinary as her findings: a rabbit played canary in the coal mine, proving to a young patient (Julianna Layne) that nothing will happen to the bunny (or her) after being exposed to radiation.
Video:
Trailer: Audrey's Children
Was it a reckless impulse or a courageous commitment to move forward that drove her? An irresistible force in these otherwise dreary environs, Dr. Evans had the temerity to chuck the hospital rulebook and apply chemotherapy agents in unapproved combinations to a 7-year-old cancer patient.
It was Surgeon General C. Everett Koop (Clancy Brown) who brought Evans into the fold. A scene in which Evans interrupts Koop's morning swim with an attention-getting jump in the pool provided the producers with a bang-up clip to accompany the star on the talk show circuit.
What elevates this from the spate of TV-bred biopics — the ones that clog multiplex arteries for the last three months of the year in order to qualify for Awards season — is Dormer’s performance, which is neither impersonation nor a composite of pay-attention-to-me overstatement. Like the aforementioned bunny in the coalmine, the most toxic masculinity is no match for the actress' determination.
There is, however, something askew about the period recreation. On more than one occasion, the anachronisms pulled me out of the action. It's 1969, but everything from the women’s daytime dresses and hairstyles to the bow ties on the men suggests the previous decade. The only thing I know about cars is how to drive one, and yet I could even spot the showroom-new '50s roadsters in the crowd. A minor complaint in an otherwise compelling tale of someone we should know. ***