Something the Lord Made

Something the Lord Made is a drama about the partnership between Alfred Blalock, a white surgeon, and Vivien Thomas, a Black lab technician and former carpenter, in Baltimore in the 1940s. Blalock is chief of surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital, while Thomas has seen his hopes of studying medicine ended by hard times. Working together, they develop a surgical procedure to help infants born with a heart defect that leaves them cyanotic, the condition known at the time as blue baby syndrome. Their collaboration crosses the racial barriers of the era, and the social pressures around them put both their work and their friendship under strain.

The film is directed by Joseph Sargent, whose earlier work includes The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, Miss Evers' Boys and Jaws: The Revenge. Peter Silverman and Robert Caswell wrote the screenplay. Alan Rickman plays Blalock and Yasiin Bey plays Thomas, with Kyra Sedgwick, Gabrielle Union, Merritt Wever and Charles S. Dutton in supporting roles.

Produced by HBO Films, the television movie runs 110 minutes. On IMDb it holds a rating of 8 out of 10 from around 18,000 votes, and on TMDB it also stands at 8 out of 10, from roughly 327 votes.