Miss You Already

An amazing cast elevates a very predictable story. I have to admit, I expected a little bit more than what this ended up being. Treacle galore but the performances are wonderful.

This is the archetypal woman's film - but there's nothing wrong with that, with far too few opportunities for women in the key roles in movie-making. So women fill the slots of scriptwriter (the British Morwenna Banks), director (American Catherine Hardwicke) and the two top acting positions (Australian Toni Collette and American Drew Barrymore).

And the subject material is feminine too: breast cancer, infertility, and female friendship. Like "The Fault In Our Stars", this is a frank exposition of what it is like to suffer cancer - in this case, with chemotherapy and its attendant sickness, tiredness and hair loss followed by headaches, vision loss, and pain.

It sounds tough and it is - one the saddest film I've seen in a long while - but there is humour and warmth and superior acting which make it worth viewing this real slice of life. After all, most of us of a certain age have had relatives or friends who have suffered one form of cancer or another, some surviving, some not.

Interesting to see that another reviewer compared this to 50/50. In many regards that is, one of them being that 50/50 does seem to get the recognition it deserves (even only in small degrees). Another interesting this is the German title for this movie: In heaven everyone is wearing high heels. Whatever that is supposed to mean.

Overall the movie is pretty engaging and the main actresses have a good chemistry together. For the subject matter it is kept pretty light, which you'll either appreciate or hate. Judging from the rating more people are on the love side. That doesn't mean it's always easy to watch and some may say this could've been a TV drama of the week kind of thing. But that would be unfair to the people involved, all of whom are doing a good job here.

This is not like one of those you have already seen cancer themed film, there's two main characters and their two sets of struggles. They both are very close friends since childhood. When they grow up, one settles down comfortably in life, but fall seriously ill and another one struggles to build a family.

I think the film's strength was the development in every scene without wasting a bit. There's always something happens that keeps us alive. I expected the usual, but it gave me a different entertainment. In the movie everything was between two friends, even each had their own family to care about, this story concentrated what came between them and how they fought together.

Great direction, shot in wonderful places, but the actors were decent. They should have been better, especially Toni Collette. To me the sentiments were very weak knowing the theme belong to the tearjerkers. Initially you might think it is a female version of '50/50', almost it was, but tried to be a different with additional story expansion. Overall a good movie, little fun to watch, you might enjoy it, but I can't guarantee.

7/10

"How could the tumor have gotten so big? It's aggressive, like you. Jesus. Well, is it contained? In my body, yes. You should have gone back sooner. Yeah, thanks. Hadn't figured that out. "

I'm not really a fan of tragicomic films with a terminal illness as a main topic. And yet I'm always impressed after accidentally watching such a movie. That was the case with "Philadelphia", starring the overwhelming Tom Hanks who was diagnosed with AIDS. In "Still Alice" Julianne Moore starred as the with Alzheimer stricken Alice. And not so long ago, I praised "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl". Also "Miss you already" kept me captivated. Especially by the stunning interaction between the two protagonists Jess (Drew Barrymore) and Milly (Toni Collette). Two best friends who shared every milestone in their life with each other. An inseparable duo. They know each other thoroughly. Both their negative and their positive sides. And they succeeded as actresses to give me that feeling that they really knew each other since their childhood. A bond they created over the years whereby they intuitively know how the other feels, what she thinks and how she'll react. That's why there's this liberty to respond humorously to dramatic moments.

For me this was the main theme of this dramatic comedy. Even though tragedy hit Milly in a profound and poignant way, it's that undestroyable friendship that emerges every time. The two inseparable friends with each their own personal problems. Milly suffers from something she would be better off without. Jess and her husband are craving for something else. Milly wants to be cured from cancer. Jess has a desire to have children. Of course it's not so obvious to resolve both problems quickly. I was amazed about the fact that both ladies had a problem telling each other about these major events, although they are so close friends and shared everything with each other. And still do. Weird.

Obviously this film will be regarded as a typical chick flick, with lots of unconstrained sniveling and sobbing. The themes are also women-related : giving birth (by the way, that scene was grossly exaggerated), best girlfriends for life, breast cancer, a disturbed positive self-image with the usual sexual problems after wards. It also could have been the opposite, in my opinion. In such a way that the male portion of the world could relate to it. Two male protagonists and real "buddies for life". One of them has testicular cancer and the other one has spermatozoa of poor quality. Same concept. But with less giggles.

The only remark you could have about this film is that the obvious clichés, associated with these emotional issues, aren't avoided very well as in "Me and Earl and the Dying Girl". The two protagonists were sublime, although for me Barrymore will always be that little girl who played along with "E.T.". Perhaps both husbands Jago (Paddy Considine) and Kit (Dominic Cooper) played a minor role, but nonetheless an important one. Especially Considine was brilliant with that sarcastic, dry humor he used sometimes. I never imagined that seeing how someone vomits in a salad bowl, because of chemotherapy, would be sinister and comical at the same time. "Miss you already" isn't exactly a light-hearted film and definitely isn't suitable as entertainment to kill (sorry) a Sunday afternoon, but it still made an overwhelming impression on me. And although I thought I knew how it would end, it still was different than I expected. Women! Always against the grain ...

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