Word: streep
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...first do no harm" (Feb. 16, 9 p.m. ET, ABC) has the requisites of a made-for-TV noble weepie: a disease, an innocent victim and an ordinary mom who becomes a wily fighter for her child's life. The film also has Meryl Streep, the most honored actress of her generation, in her first TV movie in 20 years. In the recent Marvin's Room, Streep played the selfish mother of a troubled child. But ...first do no harm" is better--less because of its heroine than because of its collective villain: the doctors to whom we entrust...
When Robbie Reimuller (Seth Adkins) is diagnosed as having epilepsy, his parents Lori (Streep) and Dave (Fred Ward) go along with the specialists' recommendations. But Dr. Abbasac (Allison Janney), a real Cruella DePill type, makes Robbie a tiny living lab for dubious experiments. Ann Beckett's bold teleplay charges doctors with being addicted to prescribing dangerous drugs to kids. The medical ordeal also acts as a mind-altering drug on Dave and Lori; it twists their love into rage and recrimination...
...must bring to ...first do no harm" a tolerance for lines like Lori's anguished "Please don't let him die!" But most of the piece has a steely passion that is evident in Ward's frazzled manliness and, especially, in Streep's carefully natural performance. She has the small gestures and tight, hectoring voice of a woman untrained for heroism, and, finally, the exhaustion of a longtime caregiver. It's been said of Streep that she learns each new role as if it were a foreign language. Here, though, she's acting, not Acting--inhabiting the part rather than...
...Marvin (Hume Cronyn), who sucks the ink off Yahtzee dice, hasn't uttered a coherent word in years. His sister Ruth (Gwen Verdon) is so devoted to soap operas that she dons a formal gown when her favorite characters wed. His daughter Lee (Meryl Streep), who smokes all the time, has no talent for raising kids. Just look at her son Hank (Leonardo DiCaprio), with his pathological fear of apologizing to people he's hurt. Fortunately, Lee's sister Bessie (Diane Keaton) is around. She has taken care of her dad for 20 years. But no good deed goes unpunished...
...Room, the 1991 Scott McPherson play, filmed by Jerry Zaks, is an old-fashioned weepie of noble mien with many bright moments and a superb cast. It's a tonic to see Keaton making sense of sanctity, DiCaprio refusing to sentimentalize a disturbed teenager. The impossible challenge goes to Streep; she's supposed to escort Lee on a forced march from belligerence into family harmony. "How can one sister be so good and the other so bad?" asks Aunt Ruth. The answer: careless writing. The movie is so unfair to Lee that one roots for her to stay stubborn...