I was expecting that something horrible would happen to the character of Mr. George Clooney, as his character (H. Pfarrer) was allergic; when I saw him going totally absorbed by his paranoia, I thought he would drink milk ("They" will never get me!) and die because anaphylactic shock. It didn't happened. The intolerance to lactose was just a hook that was used as a distraction and a joke.
shareLactose intolerance is not an allergy. You develop anaphylaxis or anaphylactic shock from exposure to milk if you are allergic to it (or peanuts or bee stings etc), but not intolerant. Lactose intolerance means you lack the enzyme in your gut that aids in completely digesting lactose in milk. This leads to bloating, gas, diarrhea and therefore discomfort. You can either drink Lacaid milk (which has removed the lactose) or chew pills that contain the digestive enzyme as a prophylaxis to prevent the symptoms of intolerance. If you were allergic to milk, this would not help. Allergies are an inappropriate inflammatory immunological response to a protein. Which can lead to you swelling up and asphyxiating, not the same thing as tummy upset at all. So yeah, I guess farting & diarrhea have been overused joke in movies for some time. And although serious allergic reactions have been shown as tragic events (think My Girl), lately they've been used for sport, too, like in Hitch & Monster-in-Law. I don't find them funny at all, but, hey that's me.
shareI'm pretty sure that Harry has no allergy to anything, and he's just being precious. People with severe allergies are, understandably, very careful about what they eat. Harry says "Does that have shell food in it?", and then eats the dumpling without finding out. Asian food uses a lot of seafood stock, so he could have keeled over if he really was allergic.
share^^ This ^^
Harry is a consumate *beep* His food issues are an attention-seeking ploy, as well as a conversational tool. This is exposed when Osborne Cox calls him out over his claimed "lactose reflux".