The Beautiful Truth
November. 14,2008A troubled 15-year-old boy attempting to cope with the recent death of his mother sets out to research Dr. Max Gerson's claims of a diet that can cure cancer as his first assignment for home-schooling in this documentary from filmmaker Steve Kroschel (Avalanche, Dying to Have Known).
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Reviews
Sorry, this movie sucks
I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible
A story that's too fascinating to pass by...
what a terribly boring film. I'm sorry but this is absolutely not deserving of best picture and will be forgotten quickly. Entertaining and engaging cinema? No. Nothing performances with flat faces and mistaking silence for subtlety.
If you are lucky enough to watch this film after reading any of these reviews, good for you. This film will expose you to a lot of Left-leaning prose, and a lot of scatter-shot facts about the controversy around the entangled business interests which have helped form our medical health system and practices, plus some other conspiracy theory stuff. If you like a good conspiracy theory you're gonna like this film. It's not trying to prove Gershon heals cancer, don't think of it like that. It's trying to build a logic cube in your head, let the facts flow in, then later start researching what you've heard, and don't stop when you find something you like, look for the other side too. After a while your mind can make new connections between the new information and what you're been taught. This stuff's too important to gloss over. It's important to learn new ways of thinking about things which incorporate more facts and more reality, and if you're only watching the narratives shown on TV, radio and news papers, you're not being exposed to the real controversies around our medical and pharmaceutical industries. Why would I want you to doubt the FDA is protecting you? because I found out about some of the controversy - it's not just one thing, and they're all important to know about. How else will we ever hope to demand our elected officials change it? Look for the Vanity Fair article called Dangerous Medicine. Some of the controversy is starting to be reported in mainstream media. Look to Democracy Now or the Huffington Post for more. Stick with it, get mad, don't withdraw from the hopelessness of it, stay mad, it helps with the petition signing you'll end up doing.
Does anyone really dispute that mainstream cancer treatments are a miserable failure for 99% of cancer types? Allopathic medicine was once was one of -many- choices for medical treatment in America. As they gained financial & political power, they launched into a campaign of bullying & lies to force other practitioners to go to -their- schools & do things -their- way, or have their practices marginalized, even destroyed. We've grown up in an America that's been brainwashed by the AMA into believing that allopathic medicine -is- medicine, & every other mode of treatment is somehow -not- medicine. The AMA, ADA, & ACS exist only for the perpetuation of their own increasing wealth, & as an army in the war against all other medical philosophies. Personally I believe the information in this film, but in any case, what would be wrong with a little propaganda in the fight against the AMA / ADA / CDC / ACS / FDA / Monsanto / Dupont / Bayer / Dow / Johnson&Johnson / Pfizer /Roche / GlaxoSmithKline / Novartis / Sanofi / AstraZeneca / Abbott / Merck / Lilly / Bristol-MyersSqibb / Alcoa conspiracy? They're the largest propaganda machine in world history!
This film is blatant promotion of the rankest health quackery, an "alternative cancer therapy" that bilks hundreds of desperate people out of hundreds of thousands of dollars- then sends them home to drink carrot juice, squirt coffee up their bums, and die. This film was made to appeal to the least discriminating and most vulnerable members of society, in an attempt to get their money before they die and it's no longer in reach. The film offers no clinical evidence for the Gershon Therapy (there is none) and no credible science to support it. It's sad and scary and more than unfortunate- it's criminal. But it's not new. The same ridiculous garbage has been sold- at the highest possible prices- to a gullible public, under different names, for a long time.
There's a lot of truth in this film. Eating a healthy diet is important in so many ways, and the kind of diet espoused by the film would be a giant step up for most of us, but that's not what makes "The Beautiful Truth" so bad.The movie is set from the perspective of a 15 year old boy who finds compelling anecdotal evidence that Gerson Therapy is effective at curing disease. However, there is no objective, scientific evidence or study that has ever shown this to be true, so the movie chooses to create a conspiracy instead of believing the actual scientific proved truth.The narrator talks condescendingly to the audience, and his tone says everything: "If a 15 year old boy who hates to read and has no education in this area can understand this, then it shouldn't be too hard for you idiots." But the truth of the matter is that neither the intended audience nor the 15 year old boy have the requisite tools to understand the material.This documentary was made to push Gerson and alternative medicine as the cure for cancer, and not just to promote healthy eating as a preventative measure against cancer.Please everybody, do yourselves a favor. Eat healthy now, whether you are sick or not. Go to a real licensed medical doctor whenever you get sick, and make sure to do what he tells you to do. If you find a movie and an uneducated 15 year old boy more compelling than scientific evidence, you should take a moment and reconsider whether you believe in things because they work ("The Ugly Truth") or if you believe in them because you wish that they worked ("A Beautiful Lie").