There's no reason to dig in depth to the plot as it's fairly routine, girl and boy meet, fall in love and get engaged before cancer comes and ruins everything and while this film was largely paint by the numbers, though it was based on a true story, there were a few good scenes and Jessica Rothe and Harry Shum, Jr manage to deliver solid performances.
The only two good scenes come when Jenn Carter bangs the steering wheel, devastated that her brand new husband has just months to live and before when Sol Chau tries to get her to leave him, knowing that his body isn't able to fight the disease much longer and doesn't want her to suffer along with him.
Despite the good moments, Sol is suffering from liver cancer and while he does bear a scar, and mentions constant side effects, he doesn't appear ill, no scenes of him puking or anything like that and this film lacks the gritty realism this topic deserves.
Fortunately, Jenn and Sol have a good support system around them, though Sol's parents are oddly never mentioned or shown and the serious topic of death is discussed off the screen, which was disappointing. Thank goodness the supporting cast was solid though there were too many of them for any of them to be really more than cookie cutter characters. Still, this film was far better than I anticipated (I had super low expectations) and it's nice seeing Glee's Shum, Jr in something again. Grade: B
Side Notes:
-The solid supporting cast includes Jay Pharoah, Chrissie Fit, Marielle Scott, Molly Hagan, Keala Settle and Mario Cantone.
-I feel that a scene was missing at the end, as Jenn goes straight from leafing through the box Sol left her to swimming alone in the ocean on the honeymoon she should have taken with him. Also, swimming in the ocean alone probably isn't a good idea.
-The dog appears, disappears and then re-appears again.
-I don't understand why Sol's numbers were doing well and then he took a turn for the worse. Clearly, something was missed.
No comments:
Post a Comment