The Cure

Erik is a lonely boy who has recently moved with his mother to a small town in Minnesota, where he struggles to fit in. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with Dexter, a younger neighbour living next door. When Erik's mother learns that Dexter contracted AIDS through a tainted blood transfusion, she forbids her son from spending time with him, but the two boys continue to see each other. After reading a newspaper article about a doctor in New Orleans who claims to have found a cure, Dexter and Erik set off from home without telling anyone, planning to travel down the Mississippi River to find him.

The film is directed by Peter Horton, whose only earlier feature was the 1987 anthology comedy Amazon Women on the Moon, and written by Robert Kuhn. Joseph Mazzello plays Dexter and Brad Renfro plays Erik, with Annabella Sciorra as Linda, Diana Scarwid as Gail, Bruce Davison as Dr. Stevens and Nicky Katt as Pony. It was produced by Universal Pictures and Island World and runs 97 minutes.

Released in April 1995, the film met with little success at the box office, taking in about 3 million dollars worldwide. Audiences have received it far more warmly than critics: on IMDb it holds a rating of 7.7 out of 10 from roughly 12,000 votes, and on TMDB it scores 7.9 out of 10, while the critics' rating stands at 5.9 out of 10 from 10 reviews.