A Lion in the House

I watched it in two sittings since it was released on Netflix. A heart breaking documentary that goes though rollercoaster of emotions. You naively hope for the "happy endings" but life is not a Disney story. Prepare tissues.

It invite us to visit the universo of childhood cancer with proposal to make us debate. A sensitive work.

This is one of the greatest documentaries I have seen. It doesn't largely edit, or grey fact into fiction, manipulate truths, use music to dictate moods, no dramatic commentaries. It simply lets the camera roll and captures what documentaries are so supposed to do: record reality. I watched this in two parts as it is long and very exhausting emotionally. It is so sad. I didn't cry, I was a blubbering mess. My wife too. We looked at each other at various times during the series and we both had tears streaming down our cheeks. This has stayed with me through the years and I still think about it. It puts you right in there and confronts you with the awful reality that children still die from cancer.

Usually when I've seen something this sad, afterward I have a sense of relief, and that my life just isn't so bad. This one was hard to recover from. I'm dumbfounded that some voters gave this 1 or 3, I just can't imagine not being moved to tears by the heartbreak contained in this film. I have to assume these were some of the folks who left before it ended at Sundance.

I believe the purpose of art is to touch someone, to make them think, to make them feel. This does that in the most human of ways. I had second thoughts about whether I was up for this, but it was incredibly captivating. I had the luxury of having this on my DVR, so I could pause to rest and recover as needed, but at no time during the nearly 4 hours did I have thoughts of not watching it in its entirety. It is one of the finest documentaries I've experienced, one I will never forget.

Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar do an impeccable job of capturing five families whose children must fight cancer to survive and live. Justin has been fighting leukemia for ten years. His family like the others would travel anywhere to get him treatment. Alex is a lovely seven year old girl who is also fighting leukemia with her parents and sister. The directors had plenty of access to the families and the medical staff at Cincinnati Children's Hospital in Ohio. The film directors spent year filming and editing this documentary. The cameras aren't intrusive but shows the pain and anguish of the families. There are some light hearted moments like Justin's mother and stepmother getting along beautifully. Her husband joked that his ex wife and wife could be lovers. Next on Jerry Springer, it's nice to see them get along so well.