Lorenzos Oil (1993)

For Augusto and Michaela Odone (Nolte and Sarandon), the news that their five-year-old son, Lorenzo, has a rare terminal disease is sobering, to learn there is no known cure is devastating. Despite the prognosis, the Odones embark on an extraordinary mission of love, consulting and sometimes colliding with the world's top doctors and scientists in the quest to save their son. Their relentless struggle tests their marriage, their beliefs and the boundaries of conventional medicine in this critically acclaimed hit from director George Miller (The Witches of Eastwick).
 


Editor's Note

Based on a true 1985 story, "Lorenzo's Oil" chronicles a couple's search for a cure for their son's fatal disease. After diagnosing 5-year-old Lorenzo Odone's condition as an extremly rare degeneration of the nervous system known as Adrenoleukodystrophy (ALD), the doctors tell his parents that there is nothing that can be done, and that he has only two years to live. Refusing to accept the word of the medical establishment, the Odones begin researching ALD themselves. As her husband desperately seeks a cure, the boy's mother devotes herself to keeping her child alive with a single-minded fanaticism that alienates everyone around her, including, at times, her husband. Academy Award Nominations: 2, including Best (Original) Screenplay, Best Actress--Susan Sarandon.