Something the Lord Made (2004)

Lack of good storyline.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

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.

Actress is magnificent and exudes a hypnotic screen presence in this affecting drama.

I was/am a "blue baby" and these doctors along with the Lord saved my life. I love the title of this movie too. I was recently told in so many words the Lord didn't make me because God "can't make illness." Well I was so hurt by this until I watched this movie, it's wonderfully made and with awesome talented actors! As I became older I became more and more interested in my congenital heart defect. I didn't know it might cut my life short but to my surprise I learned I wasn't suppose to live or have children of my own. In a sense this movie is also my story. I think I'll pass it on to the one's who don't believe we are all Something The Lord Made.

The film could have stood on its own had it simply been a compelling account of the genesis of an historic, baby-saving surgical procedure. Its treatment of the racial dimension renders it an important film, to match the importance of the lives upon which it was based. From a purely filmic perspective, the disparity of experience and eminence as between Alan Rickman and Mos Def in the acting domain, is beautifully mirrored in the relationship between the Doctor and Vivien. We watch as Mos/Vivien rises in our esteem, as their unlooked-for skill reveals itself in the operating and movie theaters. The subtle, almost off-handed, treatment of the prejudice that obtained at that time in history reveals that racist systems can only exist when the injustices are almost invisible to those on either side of the divide; accepted as a matter of course a hundred times a day. So many of the greatest scenes in this movie involve what is left unsaid, from stifled outrage to touchingly laconic "regrets". The highly emotional (for me - every time I see it) quality of this film is that the viewer knows that now the injustices portrayed are no longer invisible, and that what was unsaid to Vivien for so long was finally said, both in his recognition as a pioneer in real life and the tribute that was this film about a life that, appropriately, speaks for itself.

Vivien Thomas co-authored an excellent book, entitled "Partners of the Heart," in which he chronicled his experiences in helping to develop the surgical treatment for "blue baby" syndrome. Toward that end, the movie accurately depicted Thomas and Blalock experimenting on dogs.What the movie did not depict, however, but which Dr. Thomas himself movingly documents in his book, is that in his later years he went on to pioneer open heart surgery for dogs. In fact, veterinarians from around the country would retain him to perform surgery on canines with a variety of heart problems. In a sense, Dr. Thomas gave something back to the creatures that had served him so well in the laboratory.

I know nothing of Mos Def in the rap world, but his outstanding performance in Something the Lord Made is a "must see" movie. The story is gripping in the fact of what Vivian Thomas accomplished amid such bigotry in that era of time. I'm proud to see that he was finally recognized for his great achievements, but ashamed of what he had to go through. Had he had the proper respect and opportunities that others had, perhaps he would have achieved even more; he was hindered and burdened by history. I would love to see his portrait FIRST before seeing the others that came before him. Perhaps seeing Mos Def in this medium of performing, I would consider listening to (a)rap song, which (respectfully) I'm not fond of...but, I would be more likely to try the "rap" starting with him, simply because of his performance in Something the Lord Made.