Amazing news from Netflix: there is an extraordinary treatment available for children with very severe neurological disabilities, one that, given the appropriate level of parental gumption, will grant kids written off as hopeless cases the ability to walk and talk. The medical establishment, populated as it is with hopeless dinosaurs, hasn’t yet absorbed its full significance, and you won’t find it on the NHS, or through mainstream providers in the United States or Europe. But quietly, almost magically, it is already changing lives.
The device that provides this treatment, the Cytotron, is the subject of the Mexican movie Lucca’s World, the No 1 non-English-language film on the world’s biggest streaming platform last week. It follows one family – led by a remarkable mother, Bárbara Anderson, on whose memoir the movie is based – as they turn every stone in pursuit of a better life for their little boy. And as soon as Anderson learns about the Cytotron, there is very little room for doubt about its remarkable properties. By “stimulating the damaged brain cells in order for them to become more active and create new connections”, the device can apparently restore the functions that have been destroyed by Lucca’s severe cerebral palsy. “The Cytotron will mark a before and after in the history of medicine,” we learn. It’s “scientifically supported”. Yes, it’s eye-wateringly expensive – $50,000 for a single course of treatment in the movie – but that’s because it’s unprecedented.
An old-school doctor in the film objects that the inventors of the device – basically a pimped-out MRI machine that directs radio waves at the patient – would “already have the Nobel prize for medicine” if their claims stacked up. He quickly realises that he is hopelessly wrong. After the machine works its magic, Lucca takes some hesitant supported steps, and says “mama”; a postscript tells us that he has “started walking and talking”. The viewer is left with the same lesson as Anderson: failing to pursue such a prospect is “surrender”, or “giving up”. The only worthwhile imperative is in the promise she makes her son: “I promise I won’t rest until you get better.”
