.

A lot of this film centres around one of the lead character’s diagnosis and treatment for cancer. I’m sorry to come straight out the gate with that but rather than a spoiler warning I thought what was needed here was a trigger warning. To be fair, it’s not really a big reveal; it is clear that this is the case from the trailer and it is evident in the film within the first ten minutes as well. The movie doesn’t particularly focus on the physical implications of the disease (in fact it rather sidesteps them) but it most certainly plays out the emotional ones and any viewer who has lived through this themselves, or seen it happen to a loved one, is bound to be strongly affected by it. You should know this going in.

You should also know that the movie is so much more than this though. This is not just an illness drama and ultimately the film’s abiding message is that a life truly shared is something special no matter what happens. The narrative is nonlinear with scenes moving back on forth in the central couple’s relationship timeline (which is why we know about the cancer so early on, before you’ve actually seen them meet), so it isn’t that we are watching someone get progressively sicker either. So, yes it is sad but it is also quite lovely. 

As that couple, Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield are utterly delightful. She is playing older and he younger so their thirteen year age gap totally disappears (although they do just get by on the half your age plus seven rule) and their chemistry is great. To some extent the two actors carry the film but there is lots that is strong in Nick Payne’s script and director John Crowley manages the tricksy plotting nicely. Many of the individual scenes stand out too, in a film that is essentially a series of vignettes. There is something of an examination of an exceptional life (hers) set against an ordinary one (his) as well that makes it compelling.

More than everything this is a love story and in this the film really works. There are moments that could be corny without good handling, and it does skate pretty close to this near the end, but overall this is a sometimes tough but highly rewarding viewing experience. I’m not surprised it hasn’t featured in the awards season despite it coming out in that window and the performances being worthy of such recognition, because it isn’t groundbreaking. Some of it doesn’t hold up to scrutiny in terms of character motivations or verisimilitude as well. It still has a real honesty to it though, and a gentle power.

I really liked it.