Yes, Miss You Already is a cancer drama. Yes, it’s a “woman’s picture” — in more than the old meaning, since this was written by a woman, directed by a woman and focuses on the relationship of two women (none of which should be an issue). I’ll personally go a step further and note that the director is Catherine Hardwicke, who has been coasting on the reputation of Thirteen for 12 years, while turning out a series of stinkers (no matter how much money Twilight made). All this might suggest that you’re in for a Lifetime movie from a director of doubtful merit. Miss You Already is anything but, despite Hardwicke’s sometimes worrying tendencies with hand-held camera. No, this is a fine film. It’s sharp, funny, occasionally outrageous, brutally honest — and, yeah, it’ll make you tear-up, maybe even cry.
The story charts the lifelong friendship of Jess (Drew Barrymore) and Milly (Toni Collette) — a relationship that started when the extrovert young Milly (Eleanor Stagg) took the considerably less flamboyant young Jess (Grace Schneider), newly arrived in England, under her wing. From that day forward, the two have shared everything — but with Milly always a little ahead of the game. They are a study in contrasts — a relationship grounded in how their differences complement each other. The story is told from Jess’ point of view — partly built on a framing story about Jess having a baby. It makes sense Jess would tell the story, and not just for practical reasons, but because it’s somewhere between hard and impossible to imagine Milly slowing down enough to do so. One might also question if she would have the introspection necessary for such an undertaking, too.
There’s a certain trickiness to writing about the film’s overall story, especially in our spoiler-obsessed age. It is, however, fair to say that much of the film deals — in a very unsparing manner — with Milly’s battle with breast cancer. While it doesn’t shy away from the graphic nature of cancer and its treatment, Miss You Already — much like Milly — never loses a sense of humor, often blending humor with more serious matters. There’s a scene, for example, with Frances de la Tour as a wig-maker helping to fit Milly with a wig that manages to be funny and touching at the same time. Better still, it ends with Milly’s generally distracted actress mother, Miranda (Jacqueline Bisset), making the first of several moves that transform her daughter from a comic-relief character into something much more well-rounded.
Several things make Miss You Already more than just another cancer movie. You can start with the performances, which are across the board excellent. Barrymore and Collette are nigh on to perfect, but Dominic Cooper and Paddy Considine are not far behind, even if their husband roles are much less defined. (One could say that’s only fair when you consider how short-changed women often are in wife roles.) The film is smart enough, though, to realize that it really belongs to Collette’s outrageous, often wrong-headed Milly.
Milly is every inch the star turn and Collette embraces it to the fullest. But the film needs Barrymore for balance to help the viewer keep liking Collette when it isn’t always easy to do. This — and the fact that the film just accepts their relationship without trying to analyze it — is, I believe, its great strength. And the people making it are smart enough to know it. That they have also outfitted the film with many fine scenes — including one surefire crowd-pleaser — truly makes Miss Your Already something special. Rated PG-13 for thematic content, sexual material and some language.
My positive review of Miss You Already should go live on the C-T site tomorrow, but I wanted to go ahead and encourage moviegoers to put this film atop their To-See lists for this weekend. Spectre and The Peanuts Movie (and probably Suffragette) will be around for a good while, but this fine indie carries no such guarantee, so be sure to catch it this Friday, Saturday or Sunday. You’ll be glad you did.
I agree with that gentleman. Opening weekend is pretty much life or death for movies like this. And it really is rather special.
This is probably a ” who cares” on a film thread, but I find this somewhat related to the notion that the success or failure of a film is decided during the opening weekend.
If you have a play that is opening on Broadway, critics say that the first minute of the play on opening night determines if the play will be a hit. Imagine the pressure. That is why as a curtain is coming up, there is often a dance already in motion.
It is not dissimilar. With a movie what happens next is decided on Monday morning. Those first three days determine its fate. In the case, of an art title, it’s even more desperate. Most mainstream releases — the big titles that everyone gets — are almost always guaranteed a two week run. That allows the week and the results of word of mouth has a chance to kick in. With small movies, that second week is not a given.
That must create some pandering to the audience in the middle more often than not. The financial stakes are so high that it can’t help but impact the risks taken by the producers, directors, and writers. It is a welcome thing to see them go the way of their artistic conscience over what they think will engage most moviegoers.
I am certain you can think of some films that were great films that have been lost because they wouldn’t compromise on this.
I don’t know that it really does create much in the way of pandering — only because there’s no real way to make an art film that’s aimed at a broad audience, or at least a really broad one. The worst I think of is pandering to critics and relying on tropes from other art/indie movies. The first makes sense, because these are titles are more aimed at viewers who read reviews — and I mean who read more than the star-rating. The second just proves that art/indie filmmakers are often no more original than their mainstream brethren.
I’m sure films have been overlooked for refusing to compromise, but that’s a kind of romantic notion, too — one that was truer in the 1970s when movies that would now be handled by specialty labels were being given wide (or wide-ish) releases by major studios. (Just try to imagine movies like The Music Lovers, A Clockwork Orange, Don’t Look Now, Zardoz, Lisztomania, The Tenant, Buffalo Bill and the Indians: Or Sitting Bull’s History Lesson, etc. being given mainstream releases now.) Great movies get overlooked all the time for all sorts of reasons — some quite inexplicable. Ever hear of a movie called Nine Queens? It came out in 2002, had great reviews, and was not only good, it was entertaining. I would even call it fun. Yes, it had subtitles, but that’s not always the kiss of death. So why wasn’t it an art house hit? I have no clue.
C-T site?
Citizen-Times.
This did surprisingly well, but I would not expect a third week out of it.