Dying Young
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Actor: Campbell Scott, Colleen Dewhurst, David Selby, Julia Roberts, Vincent D'OnofrioBrand: ROBERTS,JULIA
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Dubbed), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Published), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround
Format: Anamorphic, Color, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 111 minutes
Published: 2004-02-01
DVD Release Date: 2004-02-03
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Fox Home Entertainment
DVD Reviews of Dying Young
DVD Review: A tender (though flawed) love story where love and death intertwine
Summary: 3 Stars
"Dying Young," based on the novel of the same name by Marti Leimbach, follows the adventures of Oakland native Hilary O'Neil (a luminous Julia Roberts), a beautiful and frustrated young woman who lives at home with her annoying mother (a woefully underutilized Ellen Burstyn). Hilary's struck out on both a satisfying career and her love life. Determined to move out from under her mother's grasp, she answers a newspaper ad for someone with medical experience. She trudges up Nob Hill in a super-short miniskirt and red heels to discover her would-be employer Victor is a wealthy, intelligent recluse (Campbell Scott, son of George C. and Colleen Dewhurst) with recurring leukemia. Victor has been through bouts of chemo in-between remissions for the last ten years, and he's looking for a nurse to care for him during the latest round of treatment.
I had a former teacher and friend die from adult-onset leukemia ten years ago, and I felt that the film does a decent job at scratching the surface of the physical and mental suffering that chemo induces. Chemo basically loads a person with a cocktail of poisons in the hope of killing off the cancer before it kills off the patient. Side effects include brutal nausea and vomiting (although there are newer and more effective antiemetics in the two decades since this was filmed), mouth sores, numerous digestive problems (the chemo solutions frequently damage the GI tract), a flu-like syndrome (fever and chills), joint and muscle pain, weight loss, insomnia, and impotence. Those who are squeamish may find it difficult to watch several scenes of chemo-induced vomiting and other graphic side effects.
Hilary had no idea what to expect when Victor said that he'd need help; beyond the immediate cleaning up from bouts of vomiting, he goes through excruciating periods of physical and mental suffering, which almost prove too much for her. Initially, their relationship is strictly business; she cleans up after him and cares for him, he pays her 400 a week plus a room of her own in the mansion. But Hilary begins to sense Victor's life before leukemia struck at 18; we see a series of photos of a young, confident Victor participating in sports and smiling from a happier time. Victor's decade-long bout with chemo has left him bitter and reclusive and he's loath to leave the mansion, but Hilary coaxes him out of his shell. The two go to a fancy restaurant and are served carpaccio (raw cow). In a tender role reversal, when Hilary discovers what it's made of, she frets "What if I throw up?" to which Victor tenderly replies, "I'll take care of you."
Robert's character seems to care for Victor out of compassion more than love. Victor is prickly, detached, petulant and superior (he's been working on his PhD dissertation on art history), and outwardly gives little reason to love him. His desire for Hilary is fueled by his acute loneliness and fears about dying (the survival rates for various adult-onset leukemias are still only 14 to 50% for five-year survival). Desperate to escape the vicious cycle of chemo, Victor decides to rent a cottage in Mendocino and convinces Hilary to accompany him. I felt a sense of déjà vu as Roberts is given an impromptu lesson in art history as repayment for her kindness (in her more recent film Mona Lisa Smile, Roberts plays a wordly art history professor at a restrictive girls' college in a role reversal from Dying Young). The scenery and cinematography are particularly gorgeous in these segments; rich panoramas of sea and sky fill the screen, and the film's poignant love theme by Kenny G. (Dying Young: Original Soundtrack Album) floats ethereally through tender montages of happier times.
Victor and Hilary initially play at housekeeping and married life; his hair grows back, and he's able to go for walks and do more physical activities. But the vacation in paradise is short-lived; it turns out that Victor's been hiding a dark secret of his own, one which terrifies and infuriates Hilary. The film falters in the middle: a potential rival, good-natured blue collar handyman Gordon (Vincent D'Onofrio) relates more easily with the street-smart Hilary than the intellectual Victor is able to. Gordon and Hilary bond over sitcom trivia and other blue-collar pursuits, while Victor loves to belittle Gordon with displays of his worldliness and superior book learning. In the book and original cut of the movie, Hilary has a full-fledged affair with Gordon under Vincent's nose, but due to poor test audience reactions, it was dropped, so the lightweight inclusion of Gordon felt forced and unnecessary. Also, the film's original ending (more in line with the darker mood of the book) was changed after poor test reactions. A side plot involving eccentric winery owner Estelle (Campbell Scott's real-life mother Colleen Dewhurst, in one of her last film roles before her death) and her eccentric garden maze seemed out of place (other than showing the return of Victor's illness as he struggles to complete the maze).
The tearjerker climax features both Hilary and Victor struggling to voice their deepest fears, and this was my biggest problem with the movie. I realize that chemo treatment has improved over the last twenty years, but if I had already struggled through a decade of chemo, I would want my family to respect my right to refuse treatment. That's never presented as an option. Despite strong performances by Scott and Roberts (who seems to be reprising her role in Pretty Woman (15th Anniversary Special Edition) without breaking a sweat), I never felt an attachment to Victor and Hilary as a couple; he seemed too controlling and self-centered, and instead of offering compassion towards Hilary's upbringing on "the other side of the tracks," he tries to mold her in his image. This is more of an issue with the screenplay than the actors' performances: indeed, Campbell Scott in particular is completely invisible as an actor; instead, we see the raw desperation and fear of a frightened human being living with a death sentence.
Overall, it's a solid film that's worth seeing at least once, if only for one of Campbell Scott's finest performances (I first saw him in the Hallmark movies Follow The Stars Home and The Love Letter). As for Julia Roberts, she's beautiful, but I felt a sense of emotional detachment from Hilary. The DVD offers very few extras except for a few minutes of B-roll footage and two original trailers for Dying Young; the original ending isn't present. And a final thought: just like the U.S. retitling of "Inside I'm Dancing" as Rory O'Shea Was Here, naming a movie about a cancer victim as "Dying Young" kind of lets the cat out of the bag; I preferred the European title A Choice of Love.
Description of Dying Young
A young woman is hired as the caretaker of a terminally ill young man. Their friendship grows into a love that is tested by the fact that they both know he will die.Genre: Feature Film-Drama
Rating: R
Release Date: 7-FEB-2006
Media Type: DVD
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