The subject of children being terminally ill is difficult and saddening but 'The Cure' successfully portrays the idea that it doesn't have to be all doom and gloom and, if anything, children need to have hope and delight in their lives if they are to find peace before the end. It is also a film of remarkable bonds of friendship and the innocence of childhood.

The film sees Erik, a dysfunctional adolescent boy with a distant mother, moving into a new area where their next-door neighbour is eleven-year-old Dexter, who contracted AIDS through a blood transfusion. After his initial fears and ignorance over AIDS are allayed, Erik befriends Dexter and their almost fraternal friendship sees them embark on a journey down the Mississippi to where they have heard about a New Orleans doctor who claims to have found a cure for the disease.

The talent from the two young leads of Brad Renfro and Joseph Mazzello, who play Erik and Dexter respectively, is exceptional. Brad was able to portray Erik's harder edge without comprising the subtle childish innocence inherent to the character while Joseph depicts the sense of vulnerability to Dexter's character but injects the right amount of boyish enthusiasm and zeal to highlight that his illness doesn't mean he still isn't a child who wants to run and play like any other eleven-year-old boy. The pair's interactions create a feel in the audience that these are two boys who are genuinely close and they carry the film well. Annabella Sciorra also delivers a touching performance as Dexter's mother Linda, who adores her son and delights in seeing him thrive with this new friendship to Erik and eventually becomes a surrogate mother-figure to the other boy.

Set against an excellent soundtrack, 'The Cure' is a very bittersweet film that manages to flawlessly weave the story of boyhood friendship that survives unflinchingly in the midst of prejudice and terminal illness without resorting to sappiness or unnecessary saccharine sweet scenes. A very interesting reflection in the film is that is it the adults who have the problem with Dexter's AIDS status whereas the children, even the 'bullies', come to accept him as they would any other. What is also very touching is how, despite Erik's streetwise nature, he is the more naive one in his determination to cure Dexter while the younger boy has this haunting sense that he knows his fate but is swept away by his best friend's enthusiasm for a cure.

I highly recommend 'The Cure' for it is rare to find a film that is simultaneously sad and uplifting.

This film was made at a time when there wasn't a great deal of knowledge about AIDS and as a result there was a lot of misinformation and fear about the disease. This was, therefore, a courageous film, dealing with a very delicate subject matter. Dexter (Joseph Mazzello) is an 11 year old suffering from AIDS that was transmitted through a blood transfusion. Because of the disease, he's isolated and has no friends, but he does have a loving and attentive mother (Annabella Sciorra.) After moving into a new neighbourhood, Dexter suddenly has a next door neighbour named Erik (Brad Renfro.) At first, Brad wants nothing to do with Dexter, but gradually they develop a close friendship, much to the displeasure of Erik's less than attentive mother (Diana Scarwid.)

The movie revolves around the attempt by the two boys to travel form their home in Minnesota to New Orleans, where they've heard that a doctor has developed a cure for AIDS. We follow their adventure and their growing friendship along the way, until Dexter becomes too ill to continue, which leads to the sad conclusion of the movie.

This is a moving story, which isn't built around action or excitement but rather revolves at a leisurely and low-key pace around the friendship between Erik and Dexter. It's a solid testimony to the importance of both friendship and hope, and the impact that both have, summed up by Dexter's mother near the end of the movie. When Erik laments that they hadn't found the cure, she tells him that they did, because before Erik appeared, Dexter's life had been sad, and Erik changed that. This isn't as much of a tearjerker as I thought it might be, but it's touching. (6/10)

An early film on AIDS but the case considered here makes the subject extremely tender and touching. It is an 11 year old BOY who has AIDS and got it from some medical treatment. That was common at the beginning of the epidemic. Of course some neighbourhood kids accuse the child of being gay with nice words like "fag" thrown at him as if it could in anyway be possible.

But the interest of the film is the relationship this sick child, Dexter, is going to build with his next door neighbour who is slightly older but alone with his mother like Dexter. This neighbour, Erik, is looking for a friend for the summer and he assumes the situation in which Dexter is naturally but with a tremendous optimism trying by all means to find a cure in some plants, concocting all kinds of potions for his friend.

But the best side of the story is how these two boys develop a loving relationship that makes them adventurous, courageous, even reckless, just to get a cure for the disease or to get to New Orleans where there supposedly is some doctor who would have a cure. The whole adventure becomes some kind of Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer down the Mississippi all over again, though in slightly different conditions.

This love between the two boys is in fact a threesome in a way since there is always a third character, the disease itself that haunts Dexter, that possesses Dexter and at the same time that entirely controls Erik, his reactions, his care, his tricks and pranks on nurses and doctors. Erik's mother is just a prop but Dexter's mother is also extremely important in her patience, in the way she accompanies Dexter to his final destination and accepts the love between the two boys and the silly antics they do together just because it might be the last chance Dexter has to experience some pleasure, some happiness.

And the end is a miracle in a way. The two boys decide to play a trick on a doctor again, Dexter pretending he is dead in order to resuscitate and frighten the doctor. But that was one time too many and this time the doctor confirms the diagnosis which is this time no longer a trick. That kind of end is so cool, so natural, so peaceful we just wonder if that is not the miracle a doctor spoke of before: going out on tiptoe as discreetly as possible like an angel in the sky.

Those two boys and Dexter's mother seem to give us a tremendous lesson when we are confronted to a disease that does not want to be cured. Patience, calm and receptivity seem to be the needed cure when there is no other.

Dr Jacques COULARDEAU