God Said, 'Ha!'

Julia Sweeney is masterful at communicating her extraordinary ordeal when her brother was diagnosed with cancer. I found myself rivetted to the screen, despite the fact that this is not a traditional film. You feel as if you are listening to a friend recount a terrible nightmare. I was so engrossed in the story I didn't want it to end. A beautiful movie made much more powerful by the fact that it is true. Bravo, Julia Sweeney.

This movie is so much better than that junk that is coming out of Hollywood these days. I loved Julia Sweeney in this movie because it touched my heart with her tragic story of the loss of her beloved brother, and the unfortunate circumstance of having her parents as her house guests.

Julia Sweeney's filmed version of her one-woman show is absolutely wonderful.

I first saw it with my husband when he was ill with Stage 4 cancer. I re-viewed it last night, over a year after my husband passed away. Both my husband I loved it when we first saw it (and continued to use the line, "I love my shunt!" until he died), and I loved it just as much, but for different reasons, upon seeing it again.

I found Ms. Sweeney's material to be truly amazing; she managed to capture the horror of the nightmarish "cancer experience" while keeping in touch with the parallel (and often surreal) experience that life does, in fact, go on: Cats still need to be fed, garbage still needs to be taken out, and small incidents do not become less irritating or hilarious just because there's terminal illness in the house.

The fact that Ms. Sweeney is able to find, articulate and share the humor inherent in a horrible, emotionally draining experience is a gift to everyone who sees the show. Her great intelligence and sensitivity toward the subject matter prevents her from descending into sentiment (or worse) -- there are no banal observations or advice about how to deal with terminal illness, no facile, semi-spiritual conclusions about life and death. I think she understands that this kind of bunk (all too common in books and film these days) is at best insulting to anyone who has lived through this kind of experience. Instead, her emphasis on the small, human aspects of living with someone who is terminally ill makes the experience all the more real, and all the more valuable. I know that every time my husband and I had to face a particularly difficult medical procedure, we'd swap lines from Ms. Sweeney's show, and somehow it made it easier to get through it.

And setting aside the subject matter, there's the simple fact that Ms. Sweeney's timing is terrific -- she really knows how to set up a joke and deliver it. These are not bust-your-gut guffaw jokes and anecdotes; these are the kind that manage to get you crying and laughing at the same time. What could be better?

When my father died in 1995, I thought I'd never laugh again. This movie is one that I'll always remember as my grief turned into laughter. Grief has it's own way of sneaking up on us, making the world seem surreal when reality is too hard to deal with. When a tragic illness, terminal diagnosis, or chronic injury enter a person's life, things just aren't what they used to be.

That's pretty much what this film is about. How things just aren't as they used to be, and interwoven, complex, and often piquant trips down memory lane.

This film gives a wonderfully extraordinary, titillatingly sarcastic look at medicine, a brother-sister relationship, and the way an independent, single woman finds herself back in her immediate family fold. I say 'hurrah' for the making of this film, and 'thank God' for "God Said, 'Ha!'"

This is the filmed version of Julia Sweeney's intimate one-woman stage play about her family and how they coped when cancer struck two members within a year. It takes a humorous and very brave look at a very serious situation. "God said Ha!" is an intelligent, entertaining and involving film. The title is taken from a Get Well card a friend sent Sweeney.

. One warning. If "Porky's" is your idea of sophisticated humour, this is not the film for you. A modicum of intelligence and sensitivity is required.

. Executive producer Quentin Tarantino, makes a brief cameo appearance at the end.