Dakota Fanning ("The Runaways") plays Tessa, a teenage girl with leukemia who has decided to forego the debilitating chemotherapy and live her last days to their fullest. Losing her virginity ranks high on her list — right up there with shoplifting, doing drugs and going to Glastonbury — but despite being egged on by her bad-girl friend Zoey, she finds that not any guy will do. And then the dude with male-model looks arrives: Adam (Jeremy Irvine, "War Horse") is a lonely shut-in who spends all day in his garden and is utterly available. Score!
OK, it's easy to bust on product aimed at the teen-girl demographic, but this has some decent performances from Fanning and Paddy Considine as her anguished father. Like too many of these films, though, Tessa is beautiful up to the very end, and so physically active that you'd never know she was sick, with only the occasional nosebleed or faint to remind us that the Reaper will come a-knocking. (G.F.)
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| Opens | Opens April 27, 2013 |
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