I first saw the trailer for the Netflix movie Brain on Fire as one of those pop up-type trailers when Netflix opens that start playing before you even select anything. Most of the time I don’t watch these but instead just scroll on down to whatever I’d been planning to watch. This time, I watched the trailer.
I might have just been interested in it because I saw immediately that it was Chloe Grace Moretz starring. I’ve seen her in a few young adult movies and typically can’t decide if I like her as an actress or not, probably partially because the movies of hers I’d seen in the past kind of sucked all around. This one, though, looked fairly promising.
Premise
Chloe Grace Moretz plays a twenty-one year-old New York journalist who has a great life. She loves her job and has a great boyfriend, and even still has a decent relationship with both her parents, despite their being divorced.
But one day, she feels strange. And before she knows it, she’s exhibiting a bunch of apparently unconnected physical and psychological symptoms from seizures to numb limbs to imagined voices in her head.
While those who know her best are at first puzzled at her weird new behavior and then concerned, various doctors are giving her answers like, “Stress,” and “Too much partying,” as their inadequate diagnoses.
Even as it becomes apparent that there’s something much more serious wrong here, it’s only when one particularly concerned doctor pushes for answers that the medical mystery begins to become clear.
Highs and Lows
The movie is compelling, I’ll give it that. My husband and I watched it in segments over a few nights, and it wasn’t an easy one to say, “Okay let’s stop it here.” We were just too intrigued with the medical mystery and with wondering what on earth was actually wrong with this girl.
I think the one thing that makes this movie particularly relatable is the experience she has with almost all the doctors. I highly doubt I’m alone in thinking, “That sounds familiar…” Because it’s always seemed to me like there are quire a few doctors out there who are fond of telling people that symptoms are in their head or are from things like stress, when what’s wrong isn’t immediately apparent.
On the downside, the movie does have a few moments of things like over-dramatic dialogue and under-developed characterization. Like I felt a bit that it didn’t spend enough time showing us why we should love this girl and care about her, except that she told us in a voice over at the start how much she loved her life and how great things were. Small concerns, but it’s definitely the compelling nature of the medical mystery that makes this any good, rather than any other outstanding elements.
Moral Issues
This one’s rated PG-13, which feels like a solid rating. Occasional profanity, implied pre-marital sex (nothing shown, except some male butt nudity the morning after), and some rather scary, intense moments as her state worsens.
On the whole, pretty clean. Which is refreshing. There was no need for smuttiness, and they didn’t really throw any in for the heck of it.
Over All
It kept us entertained and intrigued, and it’s actually based on a true story to boot.
Is it award-winning-quality awesome? Probably not. But it was a decent little movie without much at all to sully it.
