The Medicine Show

I saw this movie on the DVD shelf at the supermarket, and since I like Natasha Gregson Wagner, I rented it without any specific expectations. It proved to be a very pleasant surprise.

Some other reviewer described this movie as a dark comedy. It isn't really that at all. Tasteful, light humor is used to make the audience more comfortable with the circumstances of the story, which is a story about people who deal with the circumstances of their lives in an unusually accepting manner. This movie is about people who have cancer, and while you would normally expect that the movie would be terribly depressing or would make you sob like a baby, it does not do that, nor does it make you feel sorry for these people. Rather, it makes you jealous of them for having an ability to appreciate life in a way that many people never really do. There are no cliché's in this movie. This is not your typical Lifetime Movie Network special. It is a very unique, original, well-scripted, well-directed, and well-acted joy of a movie that will leave you with a smile on your face. It was evidently produced by Showtime, but it is a better movie than 90% of the commercial crud that you see down at the neighborhood multiplex. It is well worth the cost of a DVD rental, and then some.

I liked the film because it is addressing cancer which is so dark as well as serious to many from the view of the patient himself who has it in a comical way. We see how different people react and how this affects Taylor Darcy (Jonathan Silverman) in the movie, and how he reacts as well. Darcy himself has a kind of sarcastic humour about the whole thing and it seems like he is in denial about it all. The movie does well on developing the nature of the relationships between Taylor and his brother, Lynn Piegi (Natasha Gregson Wagner), and the people in Taylor's periphery who are mostly his doctor, nurses, and other hospital staff. The varying personalities which are typically found in the hospital are represented well also.

Jimmy Buffet once said that tragedies often become comedies and they better become comedies real fast or we are in a lot of trouble.

This smart film moves from the tragic into something more. Taylor Darcy is in the prime of his life when he is diagnosed with prostate cancer, the same disease that killed his father.

Thinking that he is going to die, he burns every bridge that he ever crossed. Only one friend stands with him as he goes in to the cancer ward for treatment.

There he meets a leukemia patient named Lynn. Although the film doesn't sound funny and obviously, the terminally ill are no laughing matter, comedy is the best form of medicine in this heart warming story about love and survival.

A can't miss in the inde genre.

Jonathan Silverman plays Taylor Darcy, who, as we learn within the first few minutes of the film, has colon cancer, and whose father died of colon cancer. We also learn from the beginning that he doesn't take anything seriously, preferring to deal with the world using his sarcastic wit. He tries to keep his cancer quiet at work, where he writes for cartoons, but soon everyone knows and is treating him as "special," which he can't stand. Various tests leading up to his operation are shown, some (an incompetent nurse drawing blood) in more detail than I might have liked. Since the film is from Taylor's perspective, he is not conscious during the operation itself, so thankfully that is not shown. Silverman is excellent as Taylor, and a character named Lynn Piegi, who appears later in the film, is also played very well by Natasha Gregson Wagner (daughter of Natalie Wood and step-daughter of Robert Wagner).

But I think what really makes this excellent dark comedy (yes, a comedy about cancer) work is the script. The first time director, Wendell Morris, also wrote the script, and it turns out that what Taylor goes through is very much what Wendell went though (including being a cartoon writer).

I saw this film at the Camera Cinema Club where Wendell spoke and answered questions after the film. It was made for a very low budget (shot in only 18 days), but because Silverman agreed to be in it enough money was available to shoot on film, and it looks reasonably good. It is expected to play on Showtime this summer.

Natasha Wagner has had her ups and downs in terms of performance in the movies, however, in this film, she shines.

She gives a surprisingly authentic performance -- warm, funny, touching, and at times sad. Jonathan Silverman is funny, lighthearted, and has a surprisingly wonderful chemistry with Wagner.

This film is a love story between two too young people who have cancer. But they aren't victims, but rather survivors.

They even manage to explore their sexuality towards each other in a very natural, believable, and sweet way. They play "meet the parents" under the most trying conditions. They also fight and make up. As all lovers do. They live life in the midst of the routines of hospital life. And possible death.

Natasha Wagner triumphs as she doesn't give into self pity, but continues to seek relationships in the face of disappointment and probable death (her scene when she finds out that she can no longer have children is the best of her career). She's different but fun, and this attracts Silverman (as well as the viewer).

Silverman learns how to crack the protective shell around his heart brought by the deaths of his parents (one by the same cancer that he is recovering from, one from the loss of her mate), with support and love of Wagner.

The supporting cast are also funny and real. This is a wonderful little independent film delight!