By now, you’ve probably read or at least scrolled passed one of the many reviews ofThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksthat praise奥普拉·温弗瑞’s performance. You’ve probably read the Bim Adewunmi piece for Buzzfeed that Lainey recommended calledHow Oprah Got Her Acting Groove Back。Few actresses can do what Oprah Winfrey does inThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.Believe the hype. It shouldn’t be surprising that an Academy Award nominated actress came through with outstanding work – especially in a role as layered as this one—but when it comes to Oprah, her acting abilities are usually overshadowed by her eminence. I’ll call myself out for, at times, being unable to separate Oprah the Actress from the woman we let into our living room every day. ThroughThe Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks，奥普拉（Oprah）迫使您克服自己的sh-t，并醒来她的才华。她很好。唯一的问题是这部电影是一艘平庸的船只，摇摇欲坠，因为它不值得这样的出色表演。不要误会我的意思，我仍然认为这是一部必看的电影，讲述了一个我们都应该知道的故事，但是有些时候，我拼命希望它能够发挥其潜力。
InHenrietta Lacks, which debuted on HBO on Saturday, Oprah plays Deborah Lacks, the daughter of the black woman whose cells were harvested for scientific research without her consent and led to multiple medical breakthroughs. The movie is based on the book written by Rebecca Skloot, played byRose Byrne。当我写电影的预告片时last month, I worried that a story about the intersection of race, scientific ethics, a black woman’s historic contributions and their effect on her family was going to be told through the lens of a white woman. I talked myself out of my concerns because apparently the book (full disclosure: I have not read it) paints a nuanced picture of the uneasy relationship between the rightly apprehensive Deborah and Rebecca, an eager, naïve journalist obsessed with her mother’s story. The movie comes close to capturing this relationship because Rose Byrne and Oprah Winfrey are both great, going toe-to-toe in every scene. Even when Oprah out-acts Rose, it feels like it’s on purpose – like the timid journalist is fading to the background to let her subject shine. But there are times when the story focuses so much on Rebecca’s point of view that it made me uneasy. I understand that it’s an adaptation of Skloot’s book so she’s technically the lead here but when Henrietta Lacks’ life is told through fleeting flashbacks that are only memorable because Renee Ellis Goldsberry is so magnetic, that doesn’t seem fair. It’s Henrietta’s life we’re supposed to be remembering and yet, her life is the part of the film that is the most lacking.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacksis also very much a story about science. In an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Oprah (also a producer on the film) said this subject matter was one of the things about this projectthat made her worry。
“I was quite frankly afraid of the science because science is like spinach — people don’t want to take it in, hard to convey it.”
她是对的。这部电影在同一天首次亮相，全世界成千上万的人出行了科学研究的重要性，但让我们面对现实，在电影中，科学通常不性感。当它的核心是某些细胞的历史时，很难用心脏和情感讲述视觉故事。这是哪里The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lackssucceeds. It does a good job of explaining how HeLa cells led to scientific breakthroughs without drowning its audience in jargon. Instead, it focuses on the effects these medical breakthroughs had on the Lacks family. It focuses on a poor family from Baltimore who lost their mother too soon, only to learn that other people were profiting millions from her cells. The family is distrusting of Rebecca Skloot when she shows up and even if the movie only touches on the disturbing history of using African Americans as research subjectswithout their consent，这个家庭的怀疑感觉是真实而紧迫的。黛博拉（Deborah）的偏执狂被躁狂情节增强了，这些情节很难观看，但这证明了奥普拉（Oprah）的才华。她回想起她和她的兄弟Zakaryia（无与伦比的Reg E. Cathey）遭受的虐待的场景，在亨利埃塔（Henrietta）死后遭到了姑姑和叔叔的虐待。
It’s these moments that made me think “Emmy” over and over as I was watching this movie. It’s been a great year for female performances on television so Oprah will probably have some stiff competition but I will be shocked if she’s not recognized for one of the best – if not THE best—performance of her career. To bring it back to Bim Adewunmi’s essay on Oprah, she points out that Oprah’s acting career has been devoted to telling the stories of black women that would otherwise remain untold.
在索非亚，塞思，格洛里亚，安妮和马维斯以及现在的黛博拉，奥普拉一遍又一遍地讲述特定的故事。这些是我们很少见到屏幕上的人，因此他们不像是任意选择。
Oprah’s choices are never arbitrary. They are purposeful and important and they have given us so many specific stories that deserve to be told – especially now. If this is truly Oprah’s “second act” as an actress, it’s perfect timing.
Attached - Oprah out in Beverly Hills on Friday.
