San Francisco surgeon--irrepressible in the operating room, inappropriately 'cute' around his sick patients, and a stranger to his wife and child--discovers he has a cancerous growth on his vocal chords. Screenwriter Robert Caswell, adapting the book "A Taste of My Own Medicine" by Ed Rosenbaum, M.D., and director Randa Haines clumsily set the tone for this drama with an opening sequence in the operating room: while performing a surgery, doctor William Hurt clears his throat roughly, causing fellow medic Mandy Patinkin to look up with concern. This telegraphs the audience (in a puny, melodramatic way) that something's amiss! However, the scope of the piece does improve tremendously in the picture's second act. The characters are not immediately clear, and the performances by Hurt, Christine Lahti as his neglected spouse and Elizabeth Perkins as a cancer patient suffer as a result. Hurt, in particular, is hard to get a grip on for the first two-thirds; for a film about personal redemption, he certainly takes his time learning to grow. Subplots involving Hurt's relationship with his son, his friendship with Perkins, and a malpractice suit generally fare quite poorly, yet Haines knows exactly where she wants to take this movie emotionally--and she does eventually bring it across the finish line with moving results. **1/2 from ****