But that’s another area where Miss You Already is keenly insightful: Milly’s husband, her mother (an excellent Jacqueline Bisset), and Jess have the best intentions, but they don’t always know what she needs or how to act around her. And half the time, Milly doesn’t know, either.
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A film with so many bold bullet points could easily turn maudlin or sentimental, but the sweet comedic drama manages to feel heartfelt without being cloying.
Once the illness is introduced, “Miss You Already” deftly and naturally presents how the change affects each aspect of the person who has cancer’s life – which in Milly’s case involves relationships with her spouse, children, colleagues, parents and especially her closest confidante. Their honest performances give the film a warmth that rises above a few of its more labored moments. Barrymore, on the other hand, is squeezed out of the picture as much as her character is, reduced to producing a recognizable facsimile of somebody nice. And the filmmakers do themselves no favors by eventually relying on sentimental conventions: the random road trip that may well represent Milly’s last time visiting a particular place (the Moors in this case) she has long wanted to explore; the impromptu rowdy sing-along to signify deep friendship (R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion” does the soundtrack honors this time around); the familiar-sounding indie pop songs underscoring the more overtly emotional moments.
The friendship of Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore suggests something old-fashioned. All these people are fearless enough to say, let’s change the game. Well this is one, and it’s a damn good one.
Barrymore: I am working less and less right now because I’m trying to raise my kids.
I watched it dry-eyed to the end.
Drew was moved by the sweet message and the film’s script and made a decision to head back to work earlier than expected after giving birth to her second child, daughter Frankie, in April previous year (14). If there’s a message that Hardwicke and Banks want us to walk away with, I’m hoping that’s the one they picked. Maybe this is what constitutes something being too chick-flick-y, when it’s so overladen with emotionality.
“I respect Toni so much, I just love and appreciate what she does”, Drew explained. I want to see what we’re really like.
“We finished the movie and everyone’s like, ‘How did you feel (when) you had to part?’ We were like, ‘We didn’t part, we took our families and went to Paris together!’ I just love her, honestly…” So I told (the film’s director, ) David O. Russell, “I’m going to build this whole town here”. It’s easy to change once you make the decision. I looked over at the guys beside me, and even the cheese nacho guy was into it. Tears were dripping into his cheese nachos.
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CH: I loved it-I thought I died and went to heaven. There have been a lot of people recently who are shining a light on the fact that it isn’t fair that only four percent of the big studio movies are directed by women.
