Miss You Already (2015)

That was an excellent one.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

The low ratings are surprising. This was beautiful film in every way. It's sad but also warm and even funny at times. If you are in the mood for a soul nourishing tear jerker, this film will deliver.

One of the quotes touting this movie said Beaches for 2015. While yes, I do mostly agree; I don't recall many male characters in Beaches. Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore are fantastic as best friends that have been there together through everything thick and thin. While Toni Collette's character takes a dark turn the portrayal of friendship and the sadness of preparing and dealing with the death of a loved one is something we all eventually must face. Tissue Alert! Good flick when you need to shed a tear.

Interesting to see that another reviewer compared this to 50/50. In many regards that is, one of them being that 50/50 does seem to get the recognition it deserves (even only in small degrees). Another interesting this is the German title for this movie: In heaven everyone is wearing high heels. Whatever that is supposed to mean.Overall the movie is pretty engaging and the main actresses have a good chemistry together. For the subject matter it is kept pretty light, which you'll either appreciate or hate. Judging from the rating more people are on the love side. That doesn't mean it's always easy to watch and some may say this could've been a TV drama of the week kind of thing. But that would be unfair to the people involved, all of whom are doing a good job here.

The poster of Miss You Already can illustrate the definition of a "chick flick" on some dictionary. I don't say that as an insult (in fact, there are many "chick flicks" I liked very much, such as Mean Girls and Bridget Jones' Diary), but as the identification of a genre which doesn't justify the limited ambition of the movie, which had enough positive elements in order to be more memorable. Among those positive elements, I can mention the performances from Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette, which feel credible in their roles while having a good chemistry with each other which makes us believe the long friendship between their characters. As their respective characters' couples, Paddy Considine and Dominic Cooper also make a decent work, but their characters feel like mere gears of the story, sometimes generating conflict, and other ones, support, according to what screenwriter Morwenna Banks dictates. The female friendship works as the basis of many films, but Miss You Already adds an illness as the catalyzing ingredient of the narrative to the recipe... and that was where I lost some interest. Before that comment is misunderstood, I will say that the situations portrayed in Miss You Already are truly tragic and devastating: the terrible illness from one of the friends, the consequences of the aggressive treatment and the struggle to overcome the physical and psychological ravages of her affliction are difficult themes to handle. However, I think that any MOVIE exploiting said situations should offer some complementary dramatic element, or some specific point to avoid the film from becoming hollow masochism. That was what I partially felt during the cruel development of Miss You Already. I felt some scenes as "torture porn" of a more artistic variety than the one of horror cinema; there's no blood in Miss You Already, but I felt the same sensation of cruelty as an end in itself. My troglodyte brain might need a more normal narrative context to be left completely satisfied; nevertheless, I think Miss You Already offers enough pros to deserve a moderate recommendation, such as the previously mentioned performances and Catherine Hardwicke's direction, which is never cloying and appropriately mature in her handling of difficult subjects.