Third Star

The performances are intriguing and, in particular, Cumberbatch is memorable and often mesmerizing as James, a terminally ill young man. The scenery is beautiful, and the backdrop of the Welsh coastline thematically frames the friends' journey to help James visit his favorite place on earth. Although death is often the emphasis of reviews, the film plays up the importance of love and friendship, highlighting just what makes us alive.

The audience likely will recognize or identify with a personality or two among the four friends making the journey to Barafundle Bay, but the film doesn't resort to "types." The friends have different opinions about their own--and each other's--lives, but they share a bond that can't be broken.

As other reviewers have noted, you should stick with the film for the final payoff. Undoubtedly you'll be left with something to think about--and shouldn't that be one aim of a good film?

"Third Star" was released in 2010 and, had it been a bigger film, would have won Benedict Cumberbatch an Oscar. Stardom for him was inevitable, however, as shortly afterward, he shot to stardom as "Sherlock" in the PBS series. Now he's everywhere. And he deserves to be.

Made on a small budget and directed by Hattie Dalton, "Third Star" is about James, a 29-year-old (Cumberbatch) dying of rhabdomyosarcoma, a horrible cancer that attacks the muscles. He has very little time left and is dependent upon painkillers. He wants to go to his favorite place, Barafundle Bay in West Wales. So his three best friends Davy, Miles, and Bill (Tom Burke, J.J. Field, and Adam Robertson) take him, even though it's not a good idea. James is weak and has trouble walking due to the disease in one of his legs. The guys push him in a cart that also contains their luggage for the trip.

En route, we learn about them. Davy has been taking care of James since he became ill; Miles is a writer turned businessman, whose father was a successful novelist. Miles, once a very close friend of James', hasn't been in touch for a while, and we learn that he's written a book he hasn't shown anyone. Bill is living with a woman who is not the love of his life, but he can't seem to break up with her.

These guys fight, have outbursts of anger, tell each other off, laugh, and joke, each dealing with James' illness in his own way. And James deals with life and impending death in his own way. "I don't want to die. I want more time," he says, and tells his friends off for being "safe." "Life isn't about the hand you're dealt, but the hand you feel safe playing." Some tough confessions emerge. ("Your illness disgusts me.") but eventually James asks them for a final favor.

"Third Star" is beautifully acted, but the first 45 minutes or so are slow and a disorganized, if that's the right world -- by disorganized, I mean there's a lot of the guys fooling around and trading barbs, and it becomes a bit much.

Cumberbatch gives a breathtaking, heartfelt, devastating performance, but everyone is excellent. The very handsome J.J. Fields is a standout as well -- his role is a little larger than that of the other two friends, and there's an excellent cameo by Hugh Bonneville.

Stick with it, and you'll be inspired and uplifted. Caution: You'll want a large box of tissues nearby.

How often do we get to watch a movie and laugh in one minute, cry in the other? When emotions run so deep that we smile through our tears and tear up when laughing at a joke... This is what this movie did to me. Kudos to the cast for a brilliant performance, each in their own role, and to the director to provide a wonderful audio-visual background to the beauty that lies in the friendships of these four young men.

After seeing it, we ask ourselves: would we be able to do what Davy did? Could we be this strong and brave? Maybe if we love someone that much. Maybe.

Another question is: how would we deal with a serious illness? How CAN we? The alternative is wait until it vanquishes us and steals everything from us that we used to be, that used to make us what we are, or... or take the upper hand and go out screaming. Choose how we want to end it. Choose to miss many important events and great moments... because we want to feel capable... just once again. James poses this question and we are left wondering up until the end which alternative he chooses.

I strongly, highly recommend this film to everyone who loves genuine human emotions portrayed without sentimentalism, who thinks that friendship is not over-rated and that there can be times when friends are all that's left to rely on. Because in friendship, we have a choice.

Third Star could almost be described as viewer reverse-engineered. Once you've seen the ending, it's fairly easy not only to justify the tedium of the rest of the film but to see meaning and relevance in material that almost sent you despairing to the nearest emergency exit. Several people even walked out in the press screening I attended, which is unusual. If I had just gone out for a nice evening's entertainment, I'm sure I would have headed off or even used my seat to grab a quick nap. I'm relating this in case you find yourself in a similar dilemma: if you do, my message is, DON'T LEAVE BEFORE THE END.

Four 30-something male friends set off for a remote area of Wales. One of them, James, is seriously ill with cancer. His mates are taking him for a holiday send-off in his favourite part of the world. External events soon make it plain they have bitten off more than they can chew. They have to surmount their insecurities to come clean and build a deeper level of trust based on total honesty. But that is only the start . . .

This is a film dedicated to the iPod generation. The society of urbanites who are more concerned with whether their iPhone will sync across several platforms than matters of life and death or even whether relationships need to be ideal when most people can, after all, "just settle for something that will do" and so let them get on with the day-to-day business of 'life.' Perhaps some people can relate better than I can to the bulk of this movie (some people did chuckle at the occasional humour). I love the beautiful opening, with the air blowing through the grass, the seawater, the fire of birthday candles flaming and then being extinguished. From thereon it seemed all horribly downhill until the end scenes – which, in total contrast, practically induce a state of shock.

Characters are routinely introduced, their backstories rather artificially introduced into the dialogue. They go off on their rather boring adventure, have boring little interludes such as a village fete turning into a brawl, and a meeting with a daft beachcomber searching for washed-up Daath Vader memorabilia. Of his parents, James says, "Sickness may be mine but the tragedy is theirs." And mine too, I think, for sitting through this stuff. Hair-pulling inanities abound in the trivial conversation. How can intelligent men mouth off such superficial rubbish? I allow myself to be distracted by the nice (if totally unoriginal) sunset photography. Halfway through, as a further treat for sitting there that long, I let my mind dwell on the most fascinating thing so far, a ferry price list that says, "Ferry £3. Return £6.50." This occupies me long enough to get through the next round of male hissy fits as they argue over individually failing lives. Another bit of pleasantly contrived photography comes up as they get to their destination – dancing and splashing in the sea, sunlight reflecting and sparkling (whoopee) classically off the water. Sound and vision is generally faultless, I should mention, and there's some good incidental music. What a waste (or so I thought).

Then the plotwinder kicks in with a vengeance. Dilemmas presented with frighteningly diminishing time-scales. Third Star is here fulfilling a major practical use of narrative art: making us ask, what would I do in such a situation? Any preliminary conclusions are rapidly challenged, as events shift the goal posts. Superficiality in the long lead-up becomes both a necessary factor for the denouement catching us off-guard; as well as providing commentary on how we push important questions aside for another day that (we think) never comes.

Third Star was shot in Wales on a budget of £450,000 using Super 16. Talented director Hattie Dalton and deviously clever scriptwriter Vaughan Sivell have, by accident or design, done annoyingly well. If you find yourself in a cinema watching their film, I advise you to either enjoy it or sit through it until the end. DON'T give up. Like James, 'feel the fight' in yourself one last time. You know it'll be worth it.

I am reminded of another excellent movie from a totally different genre that succeeded in misleading audiences just as as well as this one. Horror fans will recall Audition, an apparently laid-back, low-budget Asian effort. It lulled me into a sense of being able to handle with one eye shut anything such patently 'struggling filmmakers' might come up with. Only to revise my opinions with large helpings of humble pie that stuck firmly in my throat. I can't quite put Third Star in that category, but it is a damn clever movie. Even the less-than-shattering revelations mid-film, retrospectively become like the car backfiring in a noir movie (heralding a gun going off) or a door slamming in a slasher movie (heralding a bigger fright to come). But Third Star's issues are not from other-worldy fiction: they are a commentary on how we live, and how we routinely refuse to communicate on deep levels until almost too late.

I am not at the point this film displays, but I am 21 and face a tumour almost touching my brain. I'm nowhere near suicide tho so no worries there. This film felt obnoxiously real tho. I watched this because of Cumberpatch's performance as Holmes. An incredibly gripping film, I hated watching, until I watched the end. All actors played their role to perfection. The realities of facing the challenges that come up in life are so well portrayed. Messy situations lead to making a decision based on what we think is right now. All this leads up to the modern collapse of all morality. No one knows what is right and what is wrong anymore. Everything is right. Nothing is wrong.