Michael Moore’s movie runs a little over two hours, but I made it through the whole film without once having to leave the theater because of nausea! I was twenty years old the first time I noticed that seeing a movie in the theater caused me to feel queasy. It’s gotten worse over the years and more than once I’ve had to rush to the women’s room to throw up, missing a significant part of the film. Now I’ve learned when to leave and walk the lobby or hang out in the women’s room (or any place I can go that doesn’t reek of fake butter), which lessens the nausea so I don’t have to lose my dinner. I also try to go with someone I can ask, “So what happened when I left?” But mainly I just don’t go to movies. In the past three years I’ve seen about three movies in actual theaters.
So I fully expected to miss part of Moore’s film, especially since he uses a lot of hand-held camera work (the worst for my motion sickness). But I didn’t. I actually sat through the entire film and heard every minute of it (one of my techniques for watching movies in theaters is to look away from the screen as much as possible). It’s miracle!
Was this movie made palatable by all the time Moore spent on people’s health care stories without stepping onscreen himself? Was it his comparisons of our criminal health care system with the much more humane ones of Canada, England and France? Was it Moore’s coverage of 9/11 rescue volunteers who now receive no medical care for their rescue-related illnesses? Was it the bravery of Moore and three of those workers as they sailed to Guananamo naval base, seeking the unlimited health care that detainees receive? Or maybe it was seeing the Cuban doctors (the Cuban doctors, for chrissake) step up and finally give the 9/11 workers the care they needed?
I don’t know. It’s really incredible that this movie did not make me throw up when I consider that it also featured stories of people dying because of denied medical coverage and showed that hospitals regularly send people off in taxis to be dropped off on the street when they can’t pay their medical bills. There was plenty to make me heave. I guess Moore’s film is homeopathic.
I strongly recommend this movie. Maybe it would be good for hangovers, too. And if I had seen it when I was lonely, manless and depressed, I might be married to a Canadian right now (if you’d like to consider marrying a Canadian for their free health care, go to