By Erin Free
In this regular column, we drag forgotten made-for-TV movies out of the vault and into the light. This week: the heartbreaking true life 1997 drama …First Do No Harm, starring Meryl Streep, Fred Ward, Allison Janney and Margot Martindale, and directed by Jim Abrahams.
Though now rightly revered as a titan of the cinema via classics like The Deer Hunter, Kramer Vs Kramer, Sophie’s Choice, Silkwood, Out Of Africa and many, many more, the great Meryl Streep first captured hearts and stunned audiences on the small screen with her staggering work in the groundbreaking 1978 mini-series Holocaust. After that acclaimed work, however, Streep didn’t return to television for twenty years. “It wasn’t like I was avoiding TV all this time,” Meryl Streep told TV Guide in 1997. “Honestly, no one ever offered me any interesting parts. But when I heard about this movie, the story was so good, I didn’t have a choice.”
The telemovie that drew Meryl Streep back to the small screen was …First Do No Harm, which was first broadcast on major US network ABC on February 16, 1997. With her characteristic soulfulness and authenticity, Streep brilliantly plays Lori Reimuller, a headstrong midwestern wife and mother whose fearsome will is truly tested when her young son Robbie (Seth Adkins) is diagnosed with epilepsy after experiencing several falls and seizures. Along with her truck driver husband Dave (the late, great Fred Ward is fantastic, as always), Lori watches in anguish as Robbie is put through an ongoing battery of tests and drug programmes, all of which have no real effect, and some of which seem to make him worse.
While the medical professionals treating Robbie follow traditional paths and veer toward brain surgery as a next step, Lori and Dave slowly become less and less assured of their methods. Lori, in particular, begins research of her own, and eventually happens upon the ketogenic diet method (high-fat, adequate-protein, low-carbohydrate dietary therapy), which was at the time something of a fringe practice, but now stands as one of the principal medical means to treat epilepsy in drug resistant young children. The journey of the Reimuller family to a place of hope, however, is a far from easy one. It nearly bankrupts them and threatens to tear them apart, while Robbie’s young life constantly hangs in the balance.
Mery Streep and Fred Ward share a rich chemistry as the rootsy, passionate husband and wife fighting to save their son, and they get great backing from a top-tier support cast. Margot Martindale radiates warmth as Lori’s supportive best friend, while Allison Janney is occasionally infuriating as Robbie’s cold, emotionally distant doctor. Tom Butler is strong and authoritative as a community member and former doctor who comes to the Reimullers’ aid, while Oni Faida Lampley provides much-needed pluck and positivity as a hospital nurse who puts her career on the line to help Lori.
…First Do No Harm (the title is taken from one of the key tenets of The Hippocratic Oath) is strongly written by TV veteran Ann Beckett, who digs deep into the complex vein of emotions experienced by Lori and her family, and never reaches for obviousness. Though the doctors who treat Robbie are a little imperious and unfeeling, they are never presented as villains, and the bickering, often explosive Reimullers are far from saintly sufferers. Director Jim Abrahams (who co-directed the comedy classics Flying High, Top Secret! and Ruthless People with Jerry and David Zucker) guides proceedings with a sure, caring, sensitive (and only very occasionally mawkish) hand, never drifting into melodrama, and getting the very best out of his excellent cast.
So how did a comedy master like Jim Abrahams (his solo directorial efforts include 1988’s Big Business and 1991’s Hot Shots!) end up directing a heavily dramatic telemovie like …First Do No Harm? This was a pure passion project for the director, whose own son, Charlie Abrahams (who appears briefly in the film), suffered from drug-resistant epilepsy. Charlie went to school with Meryl Streep’s children, which drew the actress into the project, which soon became a passion project for her as well as her friend and director, Jim Abrahams.
“I watched them negotiate the labyrinth of care for him, and I was witness to their frustrations and their anguish,” Streep said in the telemovie’s press materials about the struggles of Jim Abrahams and his family. “They got swept into this whirlpool. Jim’s son Charlie was not doing well at the end of the second year. They had access to all the best medical advice, the best conventional wisdom; and it was on the eve of brain surgery for him that Jim discovered the ketogenic diet in the library. They flew to Johns Hopkins University, which was the last place on earth that was still administering the diet.”
Jim Abrahams was a huge proponent of the benefits of the ketogenic diet, and the filmmaker started up The Charlie Foundation to spread the word, with Streep recording a public service announcement for the group. Despite the big screen cache of the pair, Streep and Abrahams steered the project toward the small screen. “There was a lot of talk about making a feature, but we all thought it would be better if it was seen by a lot of people,” Streep said of the project. “So we took it to TV. It’s the populist medium, where we get out what we’re trying to say to the most people.”
There are many forgotten films on Meryl Streep’s resume (Dark Matter, Prime, Music Of The Heart etc), but none languish with the same level of neglect as …First Do No Harm, which is a damn shame indeed. It’s a strong, emotionally affecting telemovie worthy of rediscovery that assisted in actually forcing change in the field of medicine, and is a key work from the late Jim Abrahams, who sadly passed away in 2024.
Availability: …First Do No Harm is pretty easy to find online, but it’s not in the best shape, though it’s certainly watchable.
