By Michelle Gonzales
Daily Bruin Contributor
There is a big fault line running through our society. People
are sick and cannot receive proper medical attention.
Nick Cassavetes, director of the movie “John Q,”
attempts to shed light on the situation of health care in America.
Factory worker John Q. Archibald, played by Denzel Washington, is
forced to take drastic measures in order to find a heart donor for
his son.
“It’s an American story “¦ a great deal of
people live month-to-month ““ they work hard, and have strong
family connections,” said Cassavetes.
Denzel Washington takes on this familiar role from his own
personal life, a regular working-class man devoted to his
family.
“Well, I’ve been a man who doesn’t have power,
so I’m not that far removed (from the character),”
Washington said. “I’ve worked in factories. I’ve
worked for the sanitation departments, for the post office. I know
how it feels to be unemployed “¦ I know how it feels to not
have.”
Cassavetes also had a direct emotional connection to the movie.
As the father of a child with congenital heart disease, he drew
from his own experiences dealing with the run-around and paperwork
that hospitals put their patients through. Both Cassavetes and
Washington add real, personal perspectives to the scope of the
movie.
“What I love is a story of a man who tries to keep the
family intact. For me that’s the heart of a story,”
Cassavetes said.
Anne Heche plays a medical administrator who is desensitized to
the situation of John’s son as well as the hundreds of others
who do not have sufficient medical insurance. Her character
attempts to remind the audience of the reality that “People
get sick and people die.”
This is one of the two sides of the Hollywood dichotomy that
this film and its marketing addresses. On the one hand, there is
the seriousness of health care issues in America, yet there is also
the need to draw audiences into the film.
So is Hollywood attempting to just get people to the movie
theaters on a Friday night, or is it trying to raise viewers’
awareness of a debate that affects the majority of people?
Hollywood trailers are one of the most important selling
features of a film.
In “John Q’s” case, it seems that
Washington’s character is only a man going crazy in a
hospital.
The trailers make the movie seem like a no-brainer suspense
movie. Audiences see the pretty face of Denzel and the muzzles of
snipers’ guns. There are hints of the underlying issue at
hand, but the marketing provides clips of charismatic speech and
brief one-liners.
But apparently, there is more substance than what is used to
draw us in.
The film cites a statistic that says approximately 50 million
people in America have insufficient health coverage, and millions
do not have coverage at all. Most of these people are from the
working and lower-middle classes.
“Obviously a lot of people are falling through the cracks
and something needs to be done,” Washington said.
A film on the situation of health care could have taken the form
of a long, tedious documentary that would need to cover the broad
areas of policies, economics and politics. The discussion of class
system in America is also controversial and complicated.
“(The movie) talks about something that not too many
people want to talk about,” said Heche.
Working-class triumphs are hard to come by, but “John
Q” gives the hope of a life that America promises.