BEAUTIFUL TRUTH, THE
(director/writer: Steve Kroschel; cinematographers: William Bacon III/Mario Benassi; editor: Carey Komadina; music: Francesca Dego/Francesca Leonardi; cast: Dr. Stephen Barrett, Dr. Russell Blaylock, Dr. Dean Edell, Dr. Roger Eichmann, Dr. Hal Huggins, Dr. David Kennedy, Dr. John Olney, Dr. Wallace Sampson, Jay Kordich, Garrett Kroschel, Steve Kroschel; Runtime: 93; MPAA Rating: NR; producer: Steve Kroschel; Cinema Libre Studio; 2008)
“Boring like a one-note school lecture but nevertheless is credible as it makes its case about the need for alternative medicines.”
Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz
Steve Kroschel (“Avalanche”), an avalanche expert and sometime filmmaker, directs this essential educational documentary that is boring like a one-note school lecture but nevertheless is credible as it makes its case about the need for alternative medicines and that their suppression by the American Medical Association and pharmaceutical companies is not a good thing for the consumer. It plays like an irritating infomercial with a goody-goody narrator pushing its case in an aggressive non-subtle way for the Gerson Therapy, a natural, detoxifying regimen that’s based on eliminating toxins ingested from the environment or through processed foods. The therapy was developed in 1928 by the German born maverick Jewish scientist Max Gerson (1881-1959) to treat cancer and chronic diseases, and this film shows the positive healing effects of those who used this therapy. Charlotte Gerson, the scientist’s daughter, now carries on her deceased father’s work and appears in the film to beat a drum for it.
The film wanting to make its case with young people uses a laconic Alaskan small-town home-schooled 15-year-old named Garrett, who lives on a wild animal reserve with his widowed father, to investigate the benefits of the Gerson natural diet and the evil nature of the medical establishment to suppress these truths because they’re in bed with those selling medical drugs (the medical-industrial complex).
The Gerson Therapy offers a controversial homeopathic cancer treatment to counter the failures of the establishment’s cancer treatment and whether or not you believe it, it leaves one with food for thought; such as, the ‘war on cancer’ is largely a fraud, that the FDA is not protecting the consumer as one thinks and that there’s a link between diet and disease. To just dismiss the film because it’s so preachy and saccharine or accept it blindly, are not wise options.
REVIEWED ON 11/18/2008 GRADE: B