The movie, The Cure, starring Joseph Mozzelo playing Dexter, a young boy who received AIDS from a blood transfusion, and Brad Renfro, playing Dexter's friend, Erik, was truly a work of the heart. Dexter, newly moved into a town in Minnesota, plays alone in his backyard, because parents in the neighborhood are afraid that their children could catch AIDS from the boy. But Erik's back yard is on the other side of Dexter's fence, so Erik is intrigued and talks with Dexter on his side of the fence. Finally, he decides to just climb over the fence and the two become fast friends.
Here is the movie's trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wV5UZ565o7s
They boys had a blast getting into all sorts of mischief, but always hanging over them is that Dexter has a fatal disease. They decide that they had a mission--to find a cure for Dexter's AIDS. They try various potentially healthy foods, but found them unpalatable, so try things they liked, different kinds of candy, but that just make them sick. Then they found a news article about a doctor in New Orleans who claimed to be able to cure AIDS. That gave them a lot of hope. Erik's mother decided to send her son away to camp for the rest of the summer, so the boys hatch a plan--they both would away by taking a raft down the Mississippi River to find the curing doctor in New Orleans.
So this becomes a more serious adventure and the friendship deepens considerably. One of the most powerful scenes in the movie was one night they were camping on the ground near the river when Dexter has a nightmare. Erik wakes him up out of the frightening dream, and Dexter explains that in his nightmare he was lost a million miles out in space all alone, but Erik tenderly sooths him by giving Dexter his track shoe to hold as he slept, saying that if he got scared again in the night, he could grab onto Erick's smelly old track shoe and realize that he wasn't alone, that Erick would be by his side.
The adventure becomes more precarous and then Dexter gets very sick, so in desperation, Erik telephones Dexter's mother and she says to immediately take a Grayhound Bus back home. From then on in the movie, it is a tear-jerker, but one of those that cause you to remember that the greater the love, the more powerful the grief, which means that the greater the grief, the greater the love, a love that is your emotional reward.
Dexter is put into the hospital and again the boys have their high jinks, such as Dexter would pretend to have died and Erik would go crying to an orderly or nurse or doctor, saying that the boy had just died, and when they came in to check the boy's vitals, he would suddenly jump and scare the wits out of them. They thought that was hilarious!
But then, another of the most powerful moments in the film, Erik is awaked by the rain and gets up out of bed and looks out his bedroom window over at Dexter's house and sees over the fence and their toys are scatterd all around in the yard, memories of the times they had had together. It's at that moment that Erik realizes that Derick really could die, for real.
A day or two later, they pull their death trick again, Erik got his fake crying going and then went out into the hall to find a doctor. A doctor came in, put his stethoscope on Dexter's chest, and then again in a different place, signed, and pulled the sheet over Dexter's face.
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In the funeral home, Erik came in to pay his respects, had a long private time with Dexter's body, and then spoke very kindly to Dexter's mother. The actress who played her in all of her sceens was outstanding. Dexter's mother hugged Erik and thanked him for having been such a good friend to Dexter, and she said she hoped Erik would come visit her from time to time. He said that he would. He then walked down the stairs from the funeral home and the mother saw him walking with a limp. She went into the room where her son was lying in the open casket, and she saw that Erik had taken off his track shoe and put it into Dexters crossed arms.
Songs: Ending Songs of The Cure: The Funeral Home, and Down The River Ending Credits (Erik is shown at the nearby river where the boys had requently fished; he had floated his other shoe on the water that would flow its way down the Mississippi River to New Orleans)
Composer: Dave Grucin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2GuU7twFs38
Here's a real life sad note: Brad Renfro died of a heroin overdose in 2008 when he was 25 years old, 15 years after he played the part of Erik in the beautiful movie, The Cure. Dear Brad Renfro, may you ever rest in piece.
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