Alarm bells start ringing very early on in "Miss You Already". Alarm bells that anyone who has seen "Beaches" will immediately recognise. Like that film it follows two best friends who have known each other since childhood. Their dynamic - one a dominant bohemian personality, the other straight laced and endlessly compliant - is also quite similar but it only takes a short while for the bells to be silenced as the film gradually establishes its own identity.
Milly is a successful P.R. woman who has a gorgeous husband and two adorable kids. Her life has been one of extroversion and adventure. Her best friend Jen has gone along for the ride, always there to help pick up the pieces when things go wrong. After Milly is diagnosed with breast cancer she leans on Jen more than ever before. This creates friction between Jen and her husband Jago who have been trying, for some time, to get pregnant.
When Milly has to go for chemotherapy Jen accompanies her. When she has to shave her head and pick out a wig Jen is there. Even when she starts going off the rails and acting irresponsibly Jen still turns up no matter what else might be going on in her own life. Their bond is beyond simple camaraderie. They are, in a way, the great loves of each other's lives.
What makes the film itself stand out from the crowd is the fact that it eschews the conventional weepie structure in an attempt to fashion something that is genuinely poignant rather than a contrived narrative that overtly tries to jerk tears. The part where Milly tells her kids she has cancer is one such moment. Rather than mine it for every grain of saccharine Milly presents her plight as if she is pitching to a new client thus assuaging her children's fears.
The director Catherine Hardwicke also employs unorthodox framing and camera-work to heighten moments of intimacy and panic. She also treats the subject of cancer differently. Milly is not ennobled by her cancer. It terrifies her and prompts her regression to the darker corners of her egotism until she becomes, as Jen calls her, a "cancer bully". As her life fragments she finds it more and more difficult to cling on to who she was before hearing the diagnosis. She tries to take refuge in alcohol and sex but in doing so only serves to alienate Jen who grows more and more impatient with her.
This impatience as juxtaposed against her concern for her best friend is what gives the film its bite. Disease can turn the person you love into a selfish child and love can sometimes mutate into bitterness in the wake of this transformation.
Toni Collette, as she always does, gives a towering performance here as Milly and while the final act sees the film slightly succumb to the more traditional beats of the weepie it is nonetheless an interesting attempt to do things differently.
Milly is a successful P.R. woman who has a gorgeous husband and two adorable kids. Her life has been one of extroversion and adventure. Her best friend Jen has gone along for the ride, always there to help pick up the pieces when things go wrong. After Milly is diagnosed with breast cancer she leans on Jen more than ever before. This creates friction between Jen and her husband Jago who have been trying, for some time, to get pregnant.
When Milly has to go for chemotherapy Jen accompanies her. When she has to shave her head and pick out a wig Jen is there. Even when she starts going off the rails and acting irresponsibly Jen still turns up no matter what else might be going on in her own life. Their bond is beyond simple camaraderie. They are, in a way, the great loves of each other's lives.
What makes the film itself stand out from the crowd is the fact that it eschews the conventional weepie structure in an attempt to fashion something that is genuinely poignant rather than a contrived narrative that overtly tries to jerk tears. The part where Milly tells her kids she has cancer is one such moment. Rather than mine it for every grain of saccharine Milly presents her plight as if she is pitching to a new client thus assuaging her children's fears.
The director Catherine Hardwicke also employs unorthodox framing and camera-work to heighten moments of intimacy and panic. She also treats the subject of cancer differently. Milly is not ennobled by her cancer. It terrifies her and prompts her regression to the darker corners of her egotism until she becomes, as Jen calls her, a "cancer bully". As her life fragments she finds it more and more difficult to cling on to who she was before hearing the diagnosis. She tries to take refuge in alcohol and sex but in doing so only serves to alienate Jen who grows more and more impatient with her.
This impatience as juxtaposed against her concern for her best friend is what gives the film its bite. Disease can turn the person you love into a selfish child and love can sometimes mutate into bitterness in the wake of this transformation.
Toni Collette, as she always does, gives a towering performance here as Milly and while the final act sees the film slightly succumb to the more traditional beats of the weepie it is nonetheless an interesting attempt to do things differently.