Metacritic reviews

Just when this sunshiny and affectionate comedy is beginning to bloom, the inevitable, tear-jerking conclusion closes off the fun like a Venetian blind blocking the light. (29 Oct 2001, p.93)

Because it is slick and classy and good to look at, and the actors are well within their range of competence, you can enjoy the movie on a made-for-TV level, but you wish it had been smarter and tougher.

With nothing in the way of inspiration coming on either the writing or directing end, it's up to the actors to maintain audience interest and emotional engagement, and two members of the cast rise to the occasion: Kline and Christensen.

The real bottom line here is that the character just doesn't make much sense.

I heard a moviegoer calls this drama "a feel-good `American Beauty,'" which is like saying "a hot bowl of gazpacho" -- the point has completely been missed.

The phrase "Everything happens for a reason" is heard more than once, a risibly simplistic cliché that not only stands as this film's hackneyed theme but also as a surprisingly honest confession as to just how calculated the entire film is.

Forget about cancer -- it's weepy movies like this that are the real scourge.

Doesn't trust the audience enough to keep from laying on the schmaltz.

Will the movie end in an orgy of sentiment? Why do we bother to ask?

No worse than any disease-of-the-week TV movie, and no more moralistic than any Lifetime drama. But it's no better, either, and it ought to be.