Edge of Life
- Episode aired Mar 30, 2014
- 59m
IMDb RATING
7.9/10
263
YOUR RATING
Louis Theroux meets patients battling for their lives in LA's most famous hospital.Louis Theroux meets patients battling for their lives in LA's most famous hospital.Louis Theroux meets patients battling for their lives in LA's most famous hospital.
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John S. Yu
- Self
- (as Dr. Yu)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Featured review
Not Theroux's best
Having watched many documentaries dealing with the same subject I found this one to present a surprisingly different view. I had thought we had gotten better about reducing suffering in these kinds of situations in recent decades but there is no acceptance of the realities of the situation by even a single patient or their family here and most of the doctors on camera seem to do very little to help them get there either. This is very different from the meaningful & difficult discussions I saw them engage in with both each other and the families in something like Wiseman's "Near Death" for example.
Having one of the patients miraculously get better against the expectations of the doctors does offer something to be happy about in an otherwise gloomy documentary but I think it can lead to some people drawing the wrong conclusions. I am reminded of another documentary, Liz Garbus' Coma (2007), where doctors repeatedly made the point that when a year has passed patients with brain injuries very rarely get any better. I think predicting outcomes is probably just much more difficult when you are only days into recovery presenting a "one in a million" case like this alongside just a single case that's more typical ends up providing a fairly unrealistic view of how these things tend to actually go.
I usually am a fan of Theroux's work but in addition I feel like here he fails to get people open up much either. With different doctors it might have been different since I feel like Theroux is even having to suggest things that the doctors should have at points here and I can understand why he's not entirely comfortable doing their work for them. Overall I think there are many documentaries that do a better job at tackling this subject but I did appreciate getting a reality check on how rare it may be for people to really even accept that they are dying and how wildly the level of support doctors may be able to provide for them in doing that varies.
Having one of the patients miraculously get better against the expectations of the doctors does offer something to be happy about in an otherwise gloomy documentary but I think it can lead to some people drawing the wrong conclusions. I am reminded of another documentary, Liz Garbus' Coma (2007), where doctors repeatedly made the point that when a year has passed patients with brain injuries very rarely get any better. I think predicting outcomes is probably just much more difficult when you are only days into recovery presenting a "one in a million" case like this alongside just a single case that's more typical ends up providing a fairly unrealistic view of how these things tend to actually go.
I usually am a fan of Theroux's work but in addition I feel like here he fails to get people open up much either. With different doctors it might have been different since I feel like Theroux is even having to suggest things that the doctors should have at points here and I can understand why he's not entirely comfortable doing their work for them. Overall I think there are many documentaries that do a better job at tackling this subject but I did appreciate getting a reality check on how rare it may be for people to really even accept that they are dying and how wildly the level of support doctors may be able to provide for them in doing that varies.
Details
- Runtime59 minutes
- Color
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