The Immortal Life Of Henrietta Lacks

George C. Wolfe's film "The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks" is not your typical docudrama, and that's a good thing. Typical docudramas tell a story based on actual events in a way that is just real enough to make you believe you're hearing the truth. This HBO film -- starring Oprah Winfrey and Rose Byrne, is based on Rebecca Skloot's long-running New York Times bestseller about her journey to discover the woman behind some cancer cells that would not only forever change research and treatment the disease but revolutionize medical history. It draws on historical events to meditate on family and the life that pulses through all of us, be it cellular, genetic or spiritual. Still, with that ambitious objective in mind, this adaptation is surprisingly funny.

Rebecca Skloot (Byrne) a writer with nothing more than a few magazine articles and a whole lot of debt under her belt, sets out to write a book about a woman whose name was left out of history, Henrietta Lacks. And along the way she discovers a misinformed family with a tortured past and a whole lot of crazy keeping it afloat - the queen mother of which is Deborah Lacks (Oprah Winfrey), Henrietta's daughter.

The family does its best to keep the journalist away from Deborah; after all, their sister has already suffered at least one nervous breakdown over her mother's famous cells. And there is a huge divide between the impoverished Lacks family and the white folks that usually come to call, the researchers of John Hopkins University who poked and prodded the family for years in the name of innovation. To top it off a charlatan by the name of Sir Lord Keenan Kester Cofield (Cortney B. Vance) convinced them that they were all going to make a killing by suing the pants off these researchers. But he ended up suing the penniless Lacks family instead.

These cells have become a thing of legend among the often-superstitious family, but what are they? The everlasting (and ever increasing) remains of departed loved one? A meal ticket? Or, as Deborah's relation Cliff (the amazing John Beasley) suggests, a manifestation of the eternal life that Jesus Christ promises all of us? Deborah's innate curiosity and her undying suspicion bounce back and forth as she deals with the reporter until everything finally erupts.

Social concerns, larger than life characters and almost broad comedy merge together in this sometimes-realistic, sometimes-dreamlike memory movie. A testament more to the artistry of Wolfe, who also wrote the screenplay, than to history, this movie is scientific theology, something better felt than thought about.

Two short featurettes accompany this Blu-ray, one with sound bites from the actors and the actual family members and one a promoting the lovely Georgia location and its amazing tax incentives.

"The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks"
Blu-ray
$19.95
hbo.com/