The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks has been highly anticipated.

The press shots showing Oprah in the forefront have been getting people talking! BUT according to one review at least we have been bamboozled….

Shannon M. Houston wrote:

About 15 minutes into HBO’s highly anticipated The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, I realized I’d been tricked. Hoodwinked. Bamboozled. Led astray. Run amok. According to the press release, the trailer and all manner of publicity associated with the film’s release, this was to be a story about the life of Henrietta Lacks, “as told through the eyes of her daughter, Deborah Lacks.” Unfortunately, this is not an accurate description of director George C. Wolfe’s movie. If you were under the impression that Oprah Winfrey, playing Deborah, was the star of the movie, you were also led astray.

The star of this tale—a tale about a black woman whose cells were unwittingly taken by white doctors (who would go on to lie about her name, among many other things), and her black family’s struggle to learn about her life, death and immortality—is none other than Rose Byrne. Byrne is a white woman, playing a white science journalist who becomes fascinated by Lacks’ tale and goes on to write the book, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The film is told from her perspective, and although Winfrey’s Deborah plays a large part, it is ultimately a movie about one white woman’s fight to bring justice to the legacy of Henrietta Lacks. And everyone gets in her way—white people in the medical field and, wait for it, even the black family she’s trying to help. According to this film, Skloot suffered many setbacks, particularly in the form of the distrusting Lacks family, and nevertheless, she persisted.

That’s pretty scathing and honestly makes me a lot more apprehensive to watch it! Read her full comments here.