Gary Null's Get Healthy Now! (1999)
Review by Dindrane
Film:
DVD:

Directed by Bob Marty
Starring Gary Null

Features:

• weblinks
  

Rating: NR, suitable for all audiences

Anamorphic: N/A

My Advice: Rent it.

Get Healthy Now! offers the fruits of Gary Null’s experimentation and labour, as well as his education; Null holds a PhD in both nutrition/public health and in psychology, and his experience and affection for his subject shows. Null lays out his plan for healing the effects of many common problems, such as obesity, allergies, arthritis, and even PMS. Given that many of these problems are related to stress and to each other, it is not far-fetched to believe that healing one issue might improve another.

I typically find doctors very hard to warm up to, and perhaps the fact that Null is, while educated and knowledgeable, not a MD makes it easier to like him. He is quite personable, without being cloyingly, suspiciously friendly.

One of the largest and most useful-seeming segments in Get Healthy Now! is that dealing with depression. While much of Null’s words are not precisely new, anyone with real depression can tell you that hearing these ideas repeatedly is the only real way to internalize them. Even if Null’s methods cannot completely alleviate real depression, it only makes sense that strengthening the body as he suggests can have an effect upon brain chemicals, and the resulting physical health cannot help but aid the psychological aspects of depression.

The audio and video aspects of this are just fine, especially given that the entire thing takes place in a seminar room—the perfect place to create tinny voices and lighting issues. The production of this special is unfortunately a bit too much in the style of an infomercial. Watching Null walk about sincerely on the stage, intercut frequently with shots of the raptly listening audience is just not the best way this could have been filmed. Yes, it lets you really hear what Null is saying. However, that purpose could have been achieved with a bit more spirit, variety, and interest added to the production. As it is, even Null’s good ideas are sacrificed on the altar of a cynical audience who expects him to start selling vitamin supplements at any moment. Null deserves better than that.

Overall, Get Healthy Now! is a great start in anyone’s self-help and wellness home library. It would undoubtedly be helpful to refer back to it when you stray from the path. While much of what he says—eat right, exercise—is what your doctor is already telling you, it does help you hear it from another objective source, and his call to eat less meat is something most Americans particularly need to hear… whether you like it or not, your body needs you to pay attention, and you’ll be glad you did!