The young actors in this little seen Canadian film, Jodie Foster and Brad Savage, are just as good as the adult actors, Richard Harris, Lois Nettleton, Geraldine Fitzgerald and William Windom, and certainly the two-time Academy award-winning Foster (nominated the first time that year for "Taxi Driver") shows her promise as a major star of tomorrow here. She plays a young girl on the verge of her 12th birthday dying of a heart condition, wanting to live her last days with Grace and dignity on the shores of Nova Scotia and finding an unlikely friendship with the nine-year next door neighbor, Savage. Harris and Nettleton are her concerned parents, having different ideas of the type of treatment their daughter should have, and they even have a live-in tutor for her, veteran actress Fitzgerald who is crotchety but loving. Ultimately it has to come down to Foster live in her last days the way she sees fit, and that's going to take a lot of soul-searching from her parents.
More like a TV movie than a theatrical one, this isn't exactly a feel-good movie but somehow the writing does make you care about the characters even in their most maudlin moments. Foster was very busy as a teen actress, having at least three theatrical films this year. She'll be the reason why most people tune in to this, but veteran actor Harris and the beloved Nettleton get a ton of sympathy as well. Windom is the latest in a long line of doctors which Harris does not approve of. The Canadian lake scenery is beautiful, and Foster's determination to find dignity in dying is remarkably brave. The film's themes of accepting death may not be an uplifting one, but it's as memorable as recent successful TV movies of the time, most notably "Eric" and 'Sunshine". She's not going to be any girl In a plastic bubble. There's also a religious spin thanks to Fitzgerald's character, at conflict with the family's practice of faith. Maybe not the most uplifting film, but certainly worth it to see the young Foster in perhaps her most rare film.
More like a TV movie than a theatrical one, this isn't exactly a feel-good movie but somehow the writing does make you care about the characters even in their most maudlin moments. Foster was very busy as a teen actress, having at least three theatrical films this year. She'll be the reason why most people tune in to this, but veteran actor Harris and the beloved Nettleton get a ton of sympathy as well. Windom is the latest in a long line of doctors which Harris does not approve of. The Canadian lake scenery is beautiful, and Foster's determination to find dignity in dying is remarkably brave. The film's themes of accepting death may not be an uplifting one, but it's as memorable as recent successful TV movies of the time, most notably "Eric" and 'Sunshine". She's not going to be any girl In a plastic bubble. There's also a religious spin thanks to Fitzgerald's character, at conflict with the family's practice of faith. Maybe not the most uplifting film, but certainly worth it to see the young Foster in perhaps her most rare film.