Oprah Winfrey brings her A game as Deborah Lacks, Henrietta’s daughter.
Based on the best selling book, ‘The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks’, written by journalist Rebecca Skloot, the 90 minute HBO drama weaves 3 stories into one.
Henrietta Lacks, a mother of 5, learns she has cervical cancer at 31 and dies shortly thereafter, in 1951. Unbeknownst to anyone in her family, Johns Hopkins, the famous Medical facility, harvests her cancerous cells and creates the first Immortal Cell Line, named HeLa. The cells enabled scientists to perform tests they could never have done on humans and it led to many breakthroughs for not only cancer and leukemia.
Oprah Winfrey is the daughter who learns of the unauthorized harvesting of her mother’s cells, and sets out on a path to discover the mother she never knew. Johns Hopkins, by not asking permission, and then initially lying in the beginning, creates a hornet’s nest of anger and confusion. Family members become engulfed in believing the Hospital was deceitful because they owe the family millions of dollars and greedy people come out of the woodwork because they see big paychecks for everyone.
Rose Byrne is tjournalit Rebecca Skloot. Renee Elise Goldberry plays the young Henrietta, and Courney B. Vance is the lawyer with dollar signs in his eyes. Leslie Uggams also appears.
The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks airs tonight, April 22, at 8.00PM on HBO.
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