Transcending the Cancer Cliche

      When I heard Dakota Fanning was going to be in a film at Cannes, I got really excited because I admire her work as a young actress. Then I heard it was going to be another one of those girl-gets-cancer, tries-to-live-life-to-the-fullest kind of movies and my expectations sank really low. Somehow, though, Now is Good escapes those clichés that other similar movies often get stuck in and the end product is actually a good film.

      The film is based on the novel Before I Die by Jenny Downham. In the story, Tessa is a seventeen year old girl who has recently decided to give up trying to cure her leukemia with chemotherapy because the treatments aren’t working and she feels sick all the time. She decides if these are her last few months alive, she wants to feel as well as she can for them. Tessa makes a list of things she wants to accomplish or experience before she passes away and many things on the list are either illegal or taboo, such as shoplifting and trying drugs.

      Her relationships with each parent are very different – her mother (Olivia Williams) tries to stay back, away from the hospitals and away from the reality of pain that cancer causes. Perhaps she thinks if she avoids the terrible situation her daughter is in, it will just go away. Tessa’s father (Paddy Considine), on the other hand, is very involved with Tessa’s treatments, hospital visits, diagnoses, etc. He spends hours researching alternative treatment methods on the internet, trying to find a new way to cure Tessa that they haven’t yet tried. Though both of Tessa’s parents are in some sort of denial, Tessa herself faces the reality of her impending death and tries to conquer life head-on with her new bucket list.

      Tessa loves her family, but she often comes across as hard or uncaring, especially when she blatantly uses statements like, “When I die…”, which make her father cringe and her mother back off even more. Her brother (Edgar Canham) is the only member of the family that seems to accept what’s happening. He asks Tessa point blank if he can do certain things, like travel, when she dies and she seems to be amused by his unabashed honesty.

      As one might predict, Tessa’s last goals and wishes change from being completely self-focused to actually cherishing and spending times with the ones she loves. This includes her new boyfriend, next-door neighbor Adam (Jeremy Irvine), who falls for Tessa’s unique and fearless outlook on life. This new relationship isn’t good news for her father, who feels like he’s already losing Tessa before she even dies. He tries to scare Adam off, but Adam’s love for Tessa eventually convinces her father to include him in the last days of Tessa’s life.

      Dakota Fanning is, of course, wonderful in her role, as is Jeremy Irvine. Visually, the film is very unique. The opening sequence is animated and many scenes throughout the film use beautiful cinematography and lighting to reflect the mood of the characters. The script is honest and natural and it doesn’t get bogged down in cheesy cliché expressions.  

      Tessa isn’t a perfect angel, like many lead characters in similar films are, and no one thinks she is. Her father even finds her list and knows all along that kind of things Tessa is getting involved with. One of the biggest struggles in the film is her father trying to balance his desire to keep Tessa to himself, as his little girl, for the remainder of her life verses his desire for her to live out the rest of her life in happy independence. At one point, Tessa even indignantly asks him if he wants her to spend the rest of her life huddled in a blanket on the couch with her head on his shoulder and he answers with a quiet, “Yes”. He sees Tessa for exactly who she is, even the parts of her he isn’t completely comfortable with, like the sex and drugs, but not one thing on her list makes him love her less. It takes Tessa time to see this, or perhaps she’s knows this all along and is scared of her family’s love because she knows they will have to say goodbye to her soon.

      Though the story has been used before, Now is Good uses a fresh perspective and bravely turns parts of the narrative around, at times making Tessa a sort of “anti-hero”. When facing the subject of mortality, the film uses humor, compassion, harsh reality, and tender love to draw the viewer into the story and connect them to the characters. 

Directed by Ol Parker

Written by Jenny Downham (novel), Ol Parker (screenplay)

Produced by Peter Hampden, Adam Kulick, Christine Langan
Starring – Dakota Fanning, Olivia Williams, Jeremy Irvine, Paddy Considine

Running time - 1 hr and 39 mins