You know, I’ve found it difficult over the years to talk about Michael Moore films. After Fahrenheit, a lot of people jumped at the opportunity to draw their lines in the sand and to shift uncomfortably when I mentioned the name of that infamous baseball cap-wearing documentarian.

So I’d start with a platitude of my own devising like “Whatever your political affiliations, the man is a great filmmaker.”

This has never been more true. And I see SiCKO as the maturation of his style as both a director and as a human being.

It takes Bowling for Columbine’s penchant for humor and commentary and beautifully blends it with Fahrenheit’s biting desire for human drama and a quiet, observational eye.

Instead of jumping rapid fire from place-to-place like Columbine, which leaves you with a lot of information but lacks enough symmetry to tie the human stories together, SiCKO constructs a cohesive narrative. Instead of Fahrenheit’s use of individual people’s painful trials to cast doubt on a larger system, SiCKO’s human stories are not to attack the health care industry so much as to cast it in multiple lights.

SiCKO tells a story, from beginning to end. Oh the places you’ll go, the people you’ll meet. Moore has enhanced these people’s stories by foregoing blame on any individual party, cutting a great deal of tiresome political flack out of the equation. Moore gives you a little backstory on each person and then quietly steps away to let them talk. And it’s effective, not in the way propaganda is effective, but in the way people are effective when it comes to talking about their lives.

Interestingly, the health care industry is not shown to be the fault of any individual, but rather an enormous cloud of darkness and uncertainty. George Bush has a couple of lines in the film, but he’s no more to blame than anybody else, just a cast member in a larger tale.

One of Moore’s greatest talents, and this should be the goal of any lead in a documentary, is portraying himself. Moore has no story; he is simply a force within the film. His calm, measured narration rarely takes to a soapbox. His voice only surfaces to provide backstory, make a witty quip or, at the film’s end, provide a message of hope.

It is in this, Moore reaches full circle as the lead of his series of films. Up until now, it has been Moore wandering America, looking for meaning, and often finding only rejection and cold realities. His jokes have been a defense mechanism, a way of poking fun at corruption to keep from being destroyed by it.

But by SiCKO’s end, Moore finds an answer for himself and for the audience.

There is hope. There is the possibility for change. There is still time.

Of course, a lot of people don’t want to hear this. And I’m not talking about the left, right, up or down. Screw that. This film is powerful, and I don’t care what your political affiliation tells you. Go see it. It’s a movie for everyone, and if you have nothing to fear from this movie politically, then you should each go see it as people.

Watch it, do research, make your own decisions.

If you walk away from this movie, do it for a reason.

In a year of disappointing films, this is a shining beacon of quality. It’s human and touching, and not a second of it is wasted on overblown speeches about which side was right or wrong.

The message is nobody wins at human suffering.

Nobody.