Irreplaceable You

I dare say anyone who has reached middle age has several friends or acquaintances who have suffered and died from long term diseases, and I'm sure that no two peoples attitude to dying would be the same either. There lies the problem with this movie. I can't say I recognise any friends in the characters portrayed, but I'm sure others do. Complaining about a movie for not being real simply because it's not your reality doesn't make the writer or director wrong. The one similarity between all humans is our difference.

Okay, I'm only watching this because I adore Gugu Mbatha-Raw. She's terrific in everything she's in. But otherwise it's an absolutely meh film which, despite my usual tendency to bawl at sad films, does nothing for me.

There's the occasional amusing line of dialogue, which helps. But, for some reason, I just felt distanced from the whole thing. Not enough character development? Maybe it's too corny? After all it's nothing new. It's all been done before.

The cast is good, and they all put in a lot of effort, but the whole is smaller than the sum of its parts. Gugu is wasted but is still nice to look at and does a good job with mediocre material. Actually, her character is really annoying.

The premise of this movie had me very excited to watch. I am a sucker for chick flicks, romance movies and tear jerkers so this looked like it would be right in my wheelhouse. Unfortunately this never reached the heights it had the potential to go.

The movie is constructed as a tear jerker but while it gets close at times, they never do a good enough job of creating a close enough relationship with us and the main characters for us to care enough as we would in other great sad movies.

While Gugu Mbatha-Raw is fantastic in this movie, Michael Huisman's performance really drags the movie down as he is infuriating with a lack of emotion about the situation, both lack of sadness but also anger at Abbie's decisions and he just doesn't care enough which makes it hard to invest.

The decision in the middle of the movie that Sam makes is just plain stupid and left me not wanting him to end happy at all. The movie tried too hard to be different when they already had a great idea with a fantastic actress that would have worked if they hadn't tried too hard to be unique.

The supporting parts were well done, particularly Christopher Walken, and I connected much more with his and Abbie's relationship in the movie than I did with Abbie and Sam's.

A final nitpick was that they made the strange decision not to have Abbie appear physically sick at all. Her appearance barely changes throughout and it just makes no sense and once again loses an opportunity for us to connect.

Some great acting overall but it gets dragged down by a bad performance from Michael Huisman and poor writing. So much potential and it is my favorite type of genre but really disappointed with the outcome.

It's not a bad film. It's definitely watchable and I did get a little teary towards the end, so I wouldn't call it soul-less either. It just doesn't have enough soul and it doesn't have enough originality.

In fact, I've recently come up with a category of films that this would totally fit into. It's called "scripts that could have been written by an AI". A successful AI mind you - one that has been fed every produced script on the same topic, but also one that cannot produce anything genre-defying or ground-breaking.

So here's the recipe it operates on:

• Take the "Love Story" (the 1970 film) premise (as used by a million other films between then and now).

• Add a specific take and tension to the story, as previously done by films like "My Life Without Me" (2003)

• Create good chemistry between two stereotypical protagonists (the "loveable and deceptively sexy nerd" male and the "strong, funny, and beautiful" female)

• Add the sidekicks: the "mischievous, promiscuous, but supportive best mate", the "(much older, quirky, and wisecracking) unlikely friend", the "overbearing but still loving" mother, plus a couple more distinct-enough-but-not-too-memorable-so-as-not-to-overshadow-the-protagonists characters.

• Make the photography and styling Instagrammable

• Add a pleasant soundtrack

• Cast a veteran actor in the old-but-quirky role

• Cast a hunk recognisable from an extremely popular TV series to attract the fandom

• Lightly sprinkle on top with quotable wisdoms about the meaning of life and death

And there you have it. Served lukewarm on Netflix.

I'm not sure I could have fully appreciated the nuances and impact that the story conveyed without having personal experience of family members, and close friends suffering cancer.

Once again Gugu Mbatha-Raw gives us a barnstorming performance, showing a full range of emotions and character flaws. The stages of grief, from bargaining, anger, disbelief, through to expectance beautifully displayed. The whole story arc of trying to control the future for others rang true with my own experiences.

The supporting cast were all on form, especially Christopher Walken & Jacki Weaver, stealing most scenes that they were in with bittersweet irony, and tender emotions.

Ultimately some aspects around the story of the perfect couple together from the age of 8, annoyed me a bit, they just didn't quite seem plausible, but by the end of the film, if you're not bawling your eyes out, you have the emotional range of a teaspoon!