Now Is Good **½ (2012, Dakota Fanning, Jeremy Irvine, Paddy Considine, Olivia Williams, Kaya Scodelario, Joe Cole, Josef Altin) – Movie Review

Smart but sickly romance, with Dakota Fanning as Tessa Scott, a girl with leukaemia who compiles a list of things she’d like to do before dying, including losing her virginity. Fortunately, along comes that handy nice Englishman Jeremy Irvine, as Adam.

Ol Parker directs slickly, and writes smoothly the screenplay from the book Before I Die by Jenny Downham. The practised actors do what they can to make it palatable, with the two stars very appealing and Olivia Williams and Paddy Considine well cast as the mother and father. However, it really is funny to see the all-American girl Dakota Fanning in Brighton.

Teenage girls seem to love tales of doomed romance, but it’s hard to believe that terminal illness films and leukaemia deaths can be so very popular though. Still it worked for Love Story all those years ago and again recently for Me and Earl and the Dying Girl. And Now Is Good is certainly sweet and well meaning enough.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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