Someone recently joked that films should come with warning labels, such as “Beware, this movie features people with cancer who die in the end.” Sometimes light humorous entertainment is the best medicine.
While I was recovering from treatments, the sofa, television, and DVD’s became my refuge. Movies light up the mind with imagery and ideas that can take you away from pain and worry, but I usually hope for more than simple escape—an engaging story. I began to notice all the ways cancer is woven into storylines.
Films with an illness theme often revolve around people repairing and completing broken relationships. This genre can be life-affirming and humorous, but heartfelt stories are often labeled “tearjerker.” Although some people prefer to avoid such movies, I like them. Tears are therapeutic and sometimes it is even easier to feel somebody else’s trouble.
The movies below are a few good ones I have seen. Each features a character with cancer in an engaging story that may cause tears. The last one listed is a documentary that is quite an uplifting true story.
“Life as a House” is about a man (Kevin Kline) who loses his job, discovers he is dying and spends a summer building a house on the scenic California coast with his rebellious teenage son. As the son grows up, his divorced parents fall in love again. Of course, there are plenty of complications.
“Sweet November” shows a free-spirited young woman (Charlize Theron) living with a secret illness in until she unexpectedly falls in love and must face the reality of her worsening condition and make tough decisions about how to live out that part of her life.
“Wit” takes place in a hospital room as a tough English professor (Emma Thompson) undergoes an experimental chemotherapy treatment and reviews her life in a monologue performance that is a commentary on the often cold and antiseptic environment of the hospital. This is more like watching a stage play–quite blunt and intense.
“Marvin’s Room” is about a devoted caregiver (Diane Keaton) who looks after her elderly father until she is diagnosed with leukemia and must call upon her estranged sister (Meryl Streep) for bone marrow and help.
“My Life Without Me” tells about a young mother who learns she has just a couple months to live, but keeps this truth to herself and gets busy making the most of her remaining time. She gains a new sense of control and joy in her life as she begins to realize her potential.
“One True Thing” is about an ambitious young woman (Renee Zellweger) who gives up her fast-paced New York career to return home to care for her dying mother (Meryl Streep). She finds this new challenge to be full of complications when she learns the truth about her parents’ marriage.
“Crazy Sexy Cancer” is a little different from these other dramas. No warning label is required here. The documentary by Kris Carr is about self-empowerment. The film begins when she is diagnosed in 2003 with a rare cancer of the vascular system. She sets out to study her options by interviewing oncologists and alternative medicine specialists across the country. Along the way, she meets several women with various forms of cancer, including someone named Jackie who speaks openly about her multiple myeloma journey as a single woman in New York City.
A short clip of an old Cary Grant film is included in the movie trailer. He is shown receiving a bad diagnosis and the doctor tells him “What you need is the will to be cured.” Carr’s film demonstrates what a will to be cured looks like. We see her go through the ups and downs of hope and despair as she fights for her life and discovers treatments that eventually heal her. She concludes: “Cancer has been my guru.”
This documentary presents an uplifting true story of courage and survival that goes beyond thought-provoking entertainment. Carr’s work inspires the concept of “wellness warrior” among the like-minded members of her holistic social network, “Crazy Sexy Life.”
The one thing all these films have in common is the evidence of each character’s personal growth and transformation as they live out their cancer ordeals. Each of these stories reminds me of how my own life is evolving as a result of myeloma. That is why I call it movie therapy.
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