"I have only one thing to give you...my heart! You can have my heart!" Drip-dry schmaltz from screenwriter Richard Friedenberg, adapting Marti Leimbach's novel, is meant to tug at our heart-strings, but is unfortunately so stilted it never gets ahold of our emotions. Julia Roberts plays a directionless young woman with no future (but lots of big red hair) who takes a job as nursemaid to leukemia patient Campbell Scott. Will they fall in love once he's on the mend? Perhaps...but why? These two never seem to connect on a soulful level, and she's so busy being coy, being tough, and being caring that it's difficult to get a grasp on her. Director Joel Schumacher might have been in over his head: the film needs a light, sensitive touch and it's telling that the only well-directed scenes are the ones where Scott is being a jerk or when Roberts finally lashes out in anger near the end (the only time when she reveals something about herself that feels halfway real). It's always nice to see supporting players Ellen Burstyn, David Selby and Colleen Dewhurst; however, Burstyn is terribly miscast as a half-wit who collects dolls, Selby has next to nothing to do and Dewhurst (Scott's real-life mother) has an introduction--whirling around with an electric smile--that seems as though she's destined to be the story's grande dame, its Arc Angel (actually, she's not much of a catalyst in the narrative; I'm guessing the rest of her role hit the cutting room floor, not unlike the picture's original ending). Dewhurst, like Roberts, is just decoration in "Dying Young", a failed tearjerker in a genre that Hollywood used to know how to pull off with style and aplomb, with a few extra tissues. Not here. * from ****
Review of Dying Young
