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A movie in search of a movie. Everybody's good - it took a fraction of a second for Angelica Huston to make me cry - but even with CANCER breathing down everybody's neck there's no momentum, it just kind of sits there. In theory I admire the film's approach to addressing what it's like for a young person to go through this, but it felt more like a series of moments than an enveloping narrative, and it made it hard to get involved on an emotional level. I wish we'd gotten to know JGL's character better before the doomsday diagnosis so it meant more once it came. As is the impact is dulled, since we don't really know his world without the cancer in it, and since he becomes shell-shocked at that point it's hard to find a way in other than to just watch what happens from a distance.
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4 comments:
That about sums it up for me too. A lot about the movie does work but should work better; it's well-meaning but lacking. The two main problems are 1) Jo-Go doesn't get enough characterization to work with and instead just reacts to the people around him and 2) the relatively conventional story arc and plot points. And I had some issues with the love interest, who is apparently committed and competent enough to reach this stage in her career at a very young age but then gets flustered and loses her professionalism as soon as she gets assigned to a cute guy.
Yep...ditto.
Not to mention the fact that he has the worst doctors of all time. It was patently ridiculous to have received the news of his cancer the way he did. And after the surgeon described the extent of his bone and tissue loss, to see him up and walking around days later was laughable.
The movie worked a lot better for me. My partner and I were bawling towards the end.
-Anonymous: The doctor part of the story was based on a real incident. I've heard stories about doctors who are horrible at interacting with patients before, so not really that unbelievable. Did it ever say that last scene was only a few days later? I thought it was supposed to be at least a few weeks, judging by the mild healing of his back scar, hair regrowth, etc. I think you just assumed wrong.
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