The humor is way too forced, superficial and well-trodden to add the well-intentioned black comedy elements this otherwise bittersweet soap opera needs, but this 2007 film offers a vanity-free Sally Field giving a powerhouse performance as Anita Bergman, the dying mother of four grown children. The movie's title refers to the amount of time her character is expected to live before succumbing to ovarian cancer. With the clock ticking, the four children gather at her North Carolina home from different parts of the country and respond differently to the imminent tragedy. Directed and written by Steve Stockman as a series of vignettes, the characterizations represent different archetypes, and the actors are left to flesh them out to some human dimension. The results of their efforts are variable.
Affecting an unrecognizable American accent, Ben Chaplin fares the poorest as eldest brother Keith, an LA-based filmmaker whose sarcastic jokes are meant to shield him from feelings of insecurity and guilt. His character has the most screen time, yet his constantly jokey facade gets in the way of any sympathy we have for him. At first, Tom Cavanaugh plays Ben, the son Anita has dubbed the responsible one, as an obnoxious yuppie workaholic who gradually reveals his fears of loss but fades in the background. As only daughter Beth, Julianne Nicholson is terrific in unconditionally embracing her role as chief caretaker given that her mother is really her best friend, for better or worse. Youngest brother Matthew is drawn in the broadest strokes as the picked-upon baby of the family, and his resentment has manifested itself with a shrewish wife whom everybody else hates.
On the sidelines is Anita's second husband of 13 years, Jim, played by James Murtagh, who glowers in resentment as her children take over their house with nary a thought in his direction. Anita's first husband and the father of her children exists as a shadowy figure in the story, and Anita - in one of many revealing videotaped excerpts - has obviously not fully come to terms with her divorce. These clips - showing Anita recorded by Keith in an earlier stage of her cancer - are used as a dramatically effective framing device for the story, and Field shows herself to be at the height of her artistry in these scenes even when the material gets mawkish. Stockman based the story on the death of his own mother in 1997, and this experience informs a lot of the moments in the film, especially the brutalizing scenes of Anita's rapid decline under hospice care.
The 2007 DVD is two-sided split between full and widescreen versions and with the extras divvied up. Stockman provides an informative commentary track accompanied periodically by Dr. Ira Byock, a physician specializing in treating those knowingly facing death. There's also a solid 23-minute making-of featurette, "Learning to Live Through Dying", and four scenes labeled deleted though truthfully only one is deleted while the other three are extended. There is a group discussion guide included in each version that provides text questions to help the viewer face the death of a loved one.
