Is suffering a good subject for a movie? Death is fine (see Kill Bill, Django Unchained, anything Sam Peckinpah, anything Chinese, Saving Private Ryan). Death happens. In war it happens a bit more frequently. In Kung Fu movies it happens at a more alarming rate. Brutality is fine. Illness is different.

You have to be more careful when you make a movie about terminal illness. Because you might end up with ‘Love Story’. Even though everyone knows what happens in the end. That’s why they call it ‘terminal’. Not in the ‘5th at Heathrow’ way.

A few years back I read a book called The Fault in Our Stars. Because (probably) it was cheap on Kindle. I’m discerning like that. Ok, it was recommended too. On virtually all women’s book sites. Girl meets boy. At a teen cancer support group. Oh, that (was) is different. He gets sick, then goes into remission, she gets sick, then goes into remission. They have a tiny window of like 18 hours when both are sufficiently remiss to fly to Paris, indulge in ‘romance’ of the most sacchariny variety, create enough shmaltz to drown fifteen chickens, lose their virginity, give meanings to their tragically short lives, then everyone fucking dies and you cry. Real tears. Man tears.

They made a movie of it. I saw it on a long flight when I’d seen everything else. Great film. Shailene Woodley outstanding with a tube up her nose. I cried again. Even though I knew how it was going to end.

So last night we went to see ‘Me, Earl and the Dying Girl’. Its a story about a girl with Leukaemia. Who meets a boy. Hmmmmm. But… and there are a lot of buts. They don’t have a romance. They don’t spread the shmaltz thickly, even thinly. They don’t get all weepy and slushy. They’re just a couple of kids in a horrible situation. And in a very un-hollywood way, reacting to it as kids.

And its brilliant. Really brilliant. I won’t spoil the ending (Hollywood can treat far more major illnesses way more efficiently than bloody doctors can, so ya never know) but the whole thing is remarkably uplifting. Its set in Pittsburgh but the ‘dying girl’ is an actress from Oldham, of all places. You’d never know. And that’s the finest accolade you can give any film. That there are no horribly Lancashire accents knocking around.

Happy, HEALTHY Sunday

A xxxx