Where to watch: ‘The End of Medicine’ is available on VOD May 10th.
While Joaquin Phoenix and Rooney Mara have starred in many movies together, they’ve now teamed up to make a movie. The duo–who are as equally respected by Hollywood as they are by the animal rights community–lend their influence to a new feature-length investigative documentary called The End of Medicine. As executive producers, Phoenix and Mara team up with BAFTA-winning director Alex Lockwood (73 Cows) and producer Keegan Kuhn (Cowspiracy, What The Health) to expose a disturbing, dirty little secret that the food industry has been trying to conceal for decades.
In a swift 73 minutes, The End of Medicine draws attention to the underreported link between global disease–pandemics and antibiotic resistance included–and our (mis)use of animals. The film gets its momentum from whistleblower Dr. Alice Brough, a young vet who first grew intolerant toward the industry’s “acceptable” practices of animal agriculture. As we see, Dr. Brough risks her professional career and livelihood to denounce the corruption within the industry by sharing insider information about the reality of factory farming and animal disease. Through her tears, we can clearly see how distressed she is as she talks directly to the camera, remorseful for her contributions to the industry in the past.
In typical call-to-action-type documentaries, The End of Medicine provides an overwhelming number of facts that are meant to shock the viewer into making immediate lifestyle changes. Industry insiders, government advisors, politicians, scientists, and leading doctors share unnerving statistics that at times, feel more hopeless than optimistic.
One claim that caused me to sit up a little straighter was hearing that 3 out of 4 emerging infectious diseases come from an animal source. This tends to happen because an animal’s immune system is lowered when they’re stressed, and they’re stressed because they’re so densely packed in cages in unsanitary conditions. It’s easy for the animal, then, to catch an infection and spread it to the rest of their cage-mates and eventually, the humans who consume them. Not surprisingly, COVID was used as an example: We socially distance ourselves from other sick humans but are doing the exact opposite to animals. This film asks, “Why?”
The End of Medicine has one goal in mind, and that is to get its audience to think twice about consuming animal products. Ideally, Phoenix and Mara would be able to convince all of us to go completely vegan (but it may take a few more documentaries for that to happen). While the note the film ends on isn’t the most optimistic in tone, aside from the standard “transform yourself to transform the world”, its intentions are pure and worthwhile. Films like these are important, and if The End of Medicine causes you to pause before ordering the burger–even for a moment–then it’s done its job.
