If you're looking for a solid teen-romance-drama, then this does it, and does it quite beautifully. That isn't something I generally go looking for, but a mate had free tickets so we went. It is a really long movie, 2hrs 15mins, but somehow it balances this well and I never felt that it was dragging.
The basic premise is star-crossed teen-lovers, but in this case there is a new dimension in that they're BACTERIALLY-crossed Cystic Fybrosis teen-lovers. I'm sure there's some people who think it exploitative hospital porn and that only real CF teens should have played the roles (there always is!) or that it wasn't real enough, but I thought it was quite well done. It managed to bring a whole new experience and sense of tension to what would be cliched scenes, first dates, first kisses, mouth-to-mouth, first lung transplants, you know, the usual.
So there's all the standard beats here in the blossoming romance, with a range of weird hospital and CF twists. There is a lot of meditating on life and death, and struggle and futility and living. In this space I'd put these CF teens in a weird new character genre somewhere between sparkly-vampires and werewolves (and I mean no disrespect by that - just noting that they're not your standard human characters - they have bigger and more life & death transformative issues at stake.)
The session we were in was just after the teacher strike wrapped up, and there were a larger than usual number of teenagers in the session - I was pretty impressed that many turned up for it, to be honest. And they were responding really well to the droll LOLs of young love lines. A lot of them went to pieces, absolute pieces in places. It was a total sobfest. As an animal-story crier, it is always kinda funny to hear people losing it for human sadness, and it does set me off in the giggles.
This film probably has a lot of possibility in a school setting, heads up. You've got struggle, heartache, sexuality, risk-taking, following parents, living for the now vs living for the future. I also think there was an interesting discussion around the idea of "safe sex" and contagion, but limited instead to the CF bacteria issues.
Look, it's not really my thing, but it is well done.
J* gives it 3 stars
YOU ARE READING
j* Movie Reviews 2019
HumorSpoilery recounts? Hilarious reviews? Serious takes? Just want to know what one female film reviewer who likes action thinks about the latest release? My collection of reviews from the releases of 2019.
