This is one of the few movies I've ever seen where the whole audience broke into spontaneous, loud applause a third of the way in.

A movie that not only functions as a solid scarefest but a razor-sharp satire.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

I was/am a "blue baby" and these doctors along with the Lord saved my life. I love the title of this movie too. I was recently told in so many words the Lord didn't make me because God "can't make illness." Well I was so hurt by this until I watched this movie, it's wonderfully made and with awesome talented actors! As I became older I became more and more interested in my congenital heart defect. I didn't know it might cut my life short but to my surprise I learned I wasn't suppose to live or have children of my own. In a sense this movie is also my story. I think I'll pass it on to the one's who don't believe we are all Something The Lord Made.

As i am a really big fan of movies inspired on true events, so its obvious for me too like this movie a lot. I like to review only those movies which i like, So i think you might have understood where I am going. Something the lord made, after watching this movie i felt so proud to be in the profession. It is a movie which you will always be wanting to recommend to others. Also by the end of the movie most of us will feel like crying. After watching it, I know I felt very happy inside. It also focuses on the true aspect of life where people who do most of the hard work but don't get any credit for their achievement. But this is an entire different thing. This movie will also make you a big fan of John Hopkins hospital in the united states. So I think I would have really convinced you to watch this movie and I hope i haven't spoiled any part of it. Don't think much just watch it.

Apparently Mos Def is a rapper. But alongside veteran actor Alan Rickman, we'd be hard-pressed not to regard him as Rickman's thesp equal.A True Story worthy of movie status. Not another Viet Nam bore-fest or boxer's tragic rhapsody or musician's clichéd biopic, SOMETHING THE LORD MADE addresses an aspect so embedded in our modern culture we take it for granted - the story of the first heart bypass surgeries.Alan Rickman is cardiologist Dr. Alfred Blalock (endowed with that god-attitude intrinsic to most heart surgeons), who arrives at John Hopkins Hospital in 1941 with Vivien Thomas in tow (Mos Def), his poverty-stricken, creative, resourceful lab technician.Blalock and Vivien together create a new discipline in operating on malformed hearts adversely affecting blood circulation. The means by which they arrive at solutions to their biological puzzles must seem simple and obvious to today's heart surgeons, but it was counter-intuitive in those days when the medical profession's idée fixe was that the human heart was so complex that Man should go nowhere near it. It was Something The Lord Made (which presumes - for people who believe "the Lord" had anything to do with the human body at all - that he either didn't make everything else, or that he made the rest of it as simple as a cucumber).The OTHER prejudice in SOMETHING THE LORD MADE is that good old good ole boy standby - racism. Vivien is black, which, in those times only minimally less tolerant than these, meant denigration, deprivation, and prejudiced dismissal at every opportunity. You know, exactly like today. Couple that with the fact he has no medical degree and the race/medical prejudices are off the doctor's charts. Though he had no formal education, the didactic, ambitious Vivien's understanding of medical procedures was so innate he ended up advising Blalock in the operating room (on the special procedures for heart shunts they invented). To the chagrin of the all-white surgeon country clubbers.Movie dramatizes and compresses all the double-prejudices (the heart-operation thing and the black-guy-as-doctor thing). Only those who lived through those times would ever know the gutshock reality. Nothing can truly convey the utter contempt that the ruling white classes harbored for blacks – we can only be reminded by movies that such times existed. In this age when there is still much racism to be overcome, we cannot imagine how frightful it must have been for whitey to accept a black man in the operating room touching his innards. Especially a rapper.Mary Stuart Masterson is Dr. Helen Taussig, another cardiologist instrumental in Blalock's and Vivien's research. These three far-seeing minds pioneered treatment of the "blue baby" syndrome (called tetralogy of Fallot, a congenital heart malformation that robs the blood of oxygen, causing the baby's face to turn bluish).If we're to believe the end credits, the "blue baby" operations at Johns Hopkins launched the field of cardiac surgery.I spent most of this movie on the verge of tears, for the greatness of these people. (And for the greatness of Mos Def's talent in burying himself in this humble role.) Tempering my admiration - ego, politics, peer pressure. Blalock was a respected white doctor and there were times when he simply succumbed to passive racism for its political benefits. Yet when he needed Vivien most - in the operating room (his oft-repeated question, as he hunched over patients' open hearts without the luxury of turning around, "Are you there, Vivien?") - Vivien was always at his shoulder.In Blalock's defense, the double-whammy prejudice thing has a tendency to overshadow the achievements and courage of the white guy. Blalock did, in fact, forge new methods for heart surgery. Give the honky a little sugar, activists! Both their portraits hang in equal prominence at John Hopkins, and Vivien received an honorary degree for his work; achieving the recognition he neither sought nor cared for, but through the recognition, gaining his long overdue respect. But for Mos Def to win any sort of award for this magnificent performance, well, don't turn blue holding your breath...--Review by Poffy The Cucumber (for Poffy's Movie Mania).

I know nothing of Mos Def in the rap world, but his outstanding performance in Something the Lord Made is a "must see" movie. The story is gripping in the fact of what Vivian Thomas accomplished amid such bigotry in that era of time. I'm proud to see that he was finally recognized for his great achievements, but ashamed of what he had to go through. Had he had the proper respect and opportunities that others had, perhaps he would have achieved even more; he was hindered and burdened by history. I would love to see his portrait FIRST before seeing the others that came before him. Perhaps seeing Mos Def in this medium of performing, I would consider listening to (a)rap song, which (respectfully) I'm not fond of...but, I would be more likely to try the "rap" starting with him, simply because of his performance in Something the Lord Made.