Un medico, un uomo

It's not unusual in Hollywood for 2 studios to be working on similar projects at the same time. One obvious example might be Milos Forman's beautiful Valmont, and Stephen Frear's certainly adequate Dangerous Liaisons. The latter featured a ‘bigger' cast by American standards, and did better business, not surprisingly.

About the same time as Randa Haines' beautiful, ‘The Doctor', with William Hurt was delivered, so was Mike Nichols ‘Regarding Henry', starring Harrison Ford. Again, the latter did bigger business, and as a result I feel this film was largely overlooked.

On first look, The Doctor seems a standard tale: icy, successful surgeon finds out what medicine is really like when the tables are turned and he is diagnosed with throat cancer. His redemptive arc is somewhat predictable, as he reconnects with family, redefines his medical practice, and restructures his relationship with his similarly icy partners.

But it's under these, predictable circumstances that a true craftsman like Ms. Haines can make the ordinary extraordinary. The film is genuinely heartfelt and touching, resisting at every turn any self-indulgence, or the gratuitous pulling at heartstrings, relying on a quiet, confidence, a softer emotion instead.

Not that it's not weepy at times.

Hurt has never been better in the title role. Elizabeth Perkins as his soul-mate cancer victim is equally superb.