(1997)
4
Brian J. Dillard
Beautifully acted and chilling in its depiction of woefully misguided medical ethics, this docudrama attempts to portray both the facts of the infamous Tuskegee syphilis study and the personal stories that underscore its horror. Fascinatingly enough, the experiment began as an attempt to procure better health care for poor, rural African-Americans; its lasting legacy, however, is a lingering mistrust of the entire biomedical community. Playwright David Feldshuh and screenwriter Walter Bernstein take dramatic license in ascribing motives to their title character, who was based on the real-life nurse Eunice Rivers. Although such liberties may rankle, they ultimately give shape to what might otherwise have become a dry quasi-documentary, or, even worse, an overwrought movie of the week. In the title role, Alfre Woodard gives a typically rich performance, chronicling the noble intentions, moral compromises, and abiding guilt of the local woman who served as the primary point of contact between the study and its participants. Laurence Fishburne, who as executive producer helped shepherd the material from stage to screen, is also strong in the role of a patient who romances Miss Evers but eventually seeks treatment elsewhere and leaves both the study and her behind. Ossie Davis, Craig Scheffer, Joe Morton, and Obba Babatunde help round out the fine supporting cast, while the photography (by Donald M. Morgan) and the music (by Dwight Andres and Charles Bernstein) capture both the beauty and the squalor of the rural South. The fiery rhetoric of Woodard's closing monologue may seem overblown (and fly in the face of the historical record), but otherwise Miss Evers' Boys ranks among director Joseph Sargent's most compelling fact-based dramas.
releases for Miss Evers' Boys on AllMovie
Miss Evers' Boys (1997)
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Miss Evers' Boys
HBO Home Video
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January 8, 2002 |
