Stars: 3/5
Justin Baldoni’s directorial debut film is a cliched-but-cute teen drama that offers a surprisingly honest look at the struggles of cystic fibrosis (CF) patients, or as the movie refers to them, CFers. CF is an autosomal recessive disorder that causes mucus, sweat and digestive juices to become sticky and thick, blocking tubes, ducts and passageways, affecting the lungs most severely.
Most of the film is set in the hospital where 17-year-olds Stell (Haley Lu Richardson) and Will (Cole Sprouse) live their lives as CFers. Upon their first meeting, Stella is unimpressed by the arrogant and reckless Will, whom she knows she should stay away from as CFers run the risk of cross infection when they are in contact with other CFers.
Upon learning that Will does not follow his medical regiment strictly, the controlling Stella involves herself in his life as an enforcer. The dismayed Nurse Barb (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) warns Stella about Will’s Burkholderia’s cepacia infection, a dangerous bacterium for CFers and one that could cost Stella her place on the transplant list.
Despite the many obstacles, Stella and Will fall for each other. Fed up with everything CF has taken from her, Stella decides to take one foot back from the six-foot distance she should keep from all CFers as stated by CF guidelines.
The movie dives straight into the action with both Stella and Will living in the hospital due to declining lung function. It was particularly sobering to find out that Will’s B. cepacia infection had cost him his place on the transplant list as he needed new lungs to remain alive. The unintentional infection was a quick death sentence.
Much of Stella’s background and relevant information about CF are provided through Stella’s vlogs, which also introduce her sister Abby (Sophia Bernard). Abby, Stella’s healthy sister, lived an adventurous life of being carefree and going skydiving and cliff diving, which resulted in an accident that ended her life. This gave Stella survivor’s guilt and made her a control freak.
I was concerned about the premise of the film because it is stale. There’s an episode of “Grey’s Anatomy” about CFers falling in love with each other, and many more iterations of the concept, and the premise resembled “The Fault in Our Stars” a bit too much. However, the talented parties involved in the film were able to bring enough freshness to it to make it enjoyable.
I also hate tear-jerkers and clichés, and some of Richardson’s scenes fell to them. I failed to feel the emotion when her best friend Poe (Moisés Arias) died after celebrating Will’s 18th birthday (yes, that’s Rico from “Hannah Montana.”) Otherwise, Richardson played her character earnestly and was adorable in the role. I enjoyed Arias in the role of the gay best friend, and I felt bad he was the character that was killed off.
Unsurprisingly, Sprouse, a veteran actor, was charming and irresistible in the role. I believed great acting couldn’t save what I thought would be a fiasco, but I was proven wrong. He has come such a long way since his “The Suite Life of Zack and Cody” days. It was also interesting to see Parminder Nagra as Dr. Hamid. Nagra has played the role of doctor on many projects including “Birdbox” and “ER.”
Overall, the film didn’t tug at my heartstrings — I’m beginning to question if I have any — but it made me feel really appreciative of my working lungs and of the struggles CF patients have to go through. Both Will and Stella refer to death from CF as drowning in your own fluids, which is a horrible way to die. If you’re able to get past the corniness — and there is a lot of it — it’s worth a watch.
