Michael Moore is a loudmouth. His films tend towards the brash, arrogant, and inelegant, usually leaving subtlety and nuance to smaller personalities. He has a flair for public spectacle and complete lack of shame that would make P.T. Barnum proud. But say what you like about Michael Moore, he’s no dummy. He just plays one in the movies.
Sicko, Moore’s examination of the state of America’s health care, may be his smartest film. It follows on the heels of the polarizing Fahrenheit 9/11, which, objectively speaking, was probably his weakest: an angry polemic that preached exclusively to the choir, confirming everything the Left already believed, and solidifying the Right’s hatred of him. Moore’s passion and anger got in the way of making an effective film. Fahrenheit‘s weakness was that Moore’s politics were the only thing on display. Sicko, in sharp contrast, makes the political personal. Moore’s smartest move is to let his subjects make his points for him.
The film, which screened at a preview in D.C. last night, begins with a number of stories of misadventures in American health care that are extraordinary in their inhumanity. Extraordinary, but sadly not surprising. We’re now used to them. Most center on HMOs tap-dancing around technicalities and bending the definition of “pre-existing condition” in order to deny care, usually with devastating consequences. Moore reins in his tendency towards sarcastic humor through much of this section, allowing the victims’ sadness to carry the film. It’s an uncharacteristically measured start.
The film picks up steam, and Moore hits his stride, as he gives a brief history lesson on the rise of the HMO system. Moore may be a loudmouth. He may be clever at editing a sequence in a slightly underhanded way to achieve his goal. But he knows when to shut up and just let things play out. In a revealing sequence from the Nixon tapes, the President is being briefed on Edgar Kaiser’s health care model. His adviser states quite plainly that it’s a for-profit model, and that what makes it so effective is that it seeks to make money by treating patients as little as possible. The very next day, Nixon makes a speech telling his fellow Americans about an amazing new idea in health care. It’s simple and unadorned, one of the most memorable moments in the film, and says a great deal. It’s a mark of maturity on Moore’s part to leave his stamp off of the sequence.
