I don't feel well. I have a headache, slight nausea, and a deep, unshakable sense of hopelessness. You see, I just saw "Sicko", Michael Moore's depressingly matter-of-fact depiction of the American health care system, and I think I'm coming down with something. I don't know how to treat my symptoms but I can tell you this: after seeing "Sicko", I'm not going to a doctor.
After all these years, we don't go to Mr. Moore for even-handedness but perhaps what's most disturbing about this latest effort is how non-exploitative it feels. Yes, his voice is either smugly earnest or blatantly sarcastic (I'm not sure he knows how to sound any other way) and yes he bashes Bush and invokes 9/11 multiple times. But by and large, this is the Michael Moore of "Roger & Me". There's little of the flat-out political grandstanding that turned many (not me) off of
"Fahrenheit 9/11".
Mr. Moore goes straight for the jugular as always, painting a picture of the American health care system as a group of money-hungry corporations with profit as the bottom line. He tracks the problem back to Richard Nixon and follows it up to the present. Treating the sick, he determines, is the last thing these insurance companies want. And they will do anything in their power to deny you coverage. The less money that goes to you, the more they can keep.
In an effort to debunk the evils of socialized medicine, Mr. Moore goes international, returning to Canada and visiting England and France where he (repeatedly) reminds us how much better they have it. Again and again we see citizens of those nations flabbergasted at the thought of paying for a hospital stay or (worse yet) college. As unbelievable as it is to them, it's equally impossible for us to imagine America any different. But, come on, aren't those foreign hospitals putting their best feet forward for Mr. Moore's cameras?
The real coup in "Sicko" is Mr. Moore's visit to Cuba. After attempting to bring a boat full of sick Americans to Guantanemo Bay to get them "the same [excellent, free] treatment as the evildoers", he opts instead, in one of his finest moments, to take them to Havana to experience free health care first hand. The reactions of these people, all 9/11 volunteers, is heart-wrenching. And these moments have the less-polished, anything-can-happen feel of a great documentary.
There are too few of those moments in "Sicko" and, though this may be Mr. Moore least argumentative film, it's also his most meandering. All of his American-based stories are tragic and so they all must be told earnestly - and they start to become (dare I say it?) repetitious. Even a seasoned vet like Mr. Moore can't resist some old fashioned tear-jerking (does he need to interview the women who lost her baby girl in front of a playground?). But that doesn't change the power of what Mr. Moore does - or has done again - putting to film that which is rarely spoken. As usual, Mr. Moore offers no solutions except, possibly, to change our wicked ways. But anyone who's lived in this country for more than five minutes knows that ain't gonna happen. If "Fahrenheit" couldn't affect an election and if we can still have a Virginia Tech after "Bowling for Columbine", I don't know what good "Sicko" is going to do. It certainly didn't make me feel better.
