The tale of the experiment behind the birth of the first gene-edited humans has historical significance but continues to resemble an incomplete puzzle. I had hoped to find a few more hints and answers about the He Jiankui affair in the 2022 docufilm “Make people better” directed by Cody Sheehy, but now that I finally got to see it I must confess to a bit of disappointment. The impression is of being faced with a bricolage job executed with several valuable elements (never-before-seen footage and audio recordings) and too many random materials. It must be said that the task was difficult, for at least two reasons.

The curtain of secrecy Beijing has drawn over the events makes a worthy investigation virtually impossible, and it is likely that not even the international scientific community has much desire to delve into the still-dark sides. In the absence of information on the health status of the CRISPR girls, it is tempting for scientists to turn the page, shifting the focus to the technology’s many useful applications.

The film’s original sin is that it was conceived before the scandal erupted and was repurposed in the process. The plot is composed by interweaving mainly three voices: the bioethicist-confident (Ben Hurlbut), the journalist who authored the scoop (Antonio Regalado), and the public relations specialist who collaborated with the protagonist without succeeding in saving him.

The plausible thesis is that the Chinese authorities had promised support to the researcher as long as the controversy remained within manageable limits, but when it flared up beyond measure they abandoned him to his fate. The movie also has the shortcoming of ending too soon: it barely makes it in time to announce He Jiankui’s three-year prison sentence, but it reveals nothing about the trial or helps to understand what kind of alliances the researcher has today in his (probably vain) attempt to rehabilitate himself as a scientist.