Life Support

Life Support is a television movie about a woman, played by Queen Latifah, who has the HIV virus and works with a HIV/AIDS patient support program while trying to make amends with her estranged daughter. Life Support is based on a true story of a mother who overcame crack addiction and became a positive influence on the AIDS community.

The message is all too clear in "Life Support," writer-director Nelson George's feature debut based on his HIV-positive sister, Andrea Williams. Subtext and subtlety have little place in this melodrama of a Brooklyn woman working in an HIV awareness support group and wrestling with her own family issues. As a kind but flawed mother and wife, Queen Latifah brings a quiet command and humanity. Nonetheless, though certainly useful as an educational vehicle, this TV-scaled piece is not as well suited for Sundance's closing night selection as it is for its airing on HBO. — Variety

It has a dramatic sincerity about the regenerative power of family, a lived-in vibe that steers clear of melodrama in favor of real-life moments and exchanges. And when you cast actors who can convey so much through the smallest of gestures or looks — Latifah with her natural conviction, Pierce with his versatile baritone, Smith with those commanding eyes — a movie called Life Support has all that its title implies. — LA Weekly