Cinema for the Infirm: Dying Young
If spunkiness was medicine Julia Roberts could heal the world.
(Cinema for the Infirm is a feature in which I, a person with a potentially life-threatening illness, discuss films that feature a seriously ill character, for better or worse [mostly worse]. Spoilers should be expected.)
Well, we did it. In 1991’s Dying Young, we finally have a seriously ill protagonist who actually looks and acts sick. They’re sweaty, they’re bald, they’re pale, they throw up, they’re tired, they’re in pain, they’re miserable much of the time, and they’re often unpleasant to be around. Instead of a beacon of quiet grace and courage for everyone around them, they’re just kind of whiny and self-pitying, as one would expect a person to be in such a situation.
The big difference between this protagonist and those in every other movie covered in this column so far? He’s a man.
His name is Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott), a lonely, sheltered PhD student who’s battled leukemia for much of his life. Lest you think this movie is too realistic, he’s also very rich, so rich he has a butler, and when it’s time to endure another grueling round of chemotherapy, he simply hires someone to be his live-in companion, caregiver, and nurse. That’s Hilary O’Neil (Julia Roberts), a spunky, working-class gal who shows up to interview for a companion/nurse job in a miniskirt and stiletto heels. It’s appropriate that Roberts plays a character almost identical to her character in Pretty Woman, because Dying Young is pretty much the same movie, only slow and depressing.
Though Victor insists on hiring Hilary against his father’s wishes, he doesn’t seem to like her very much at first. Then again, Victor doesn’t really like anyone very much. He’s, frankly, kind of an asshole, a condescending snob who all but sneers in glee whenever Hilary expresses ignorance of one rich asshole thing or another. But Hilary needs the money, so she hangs in there, baby, because that’s what spunky gals with lots of moxie do.
Of course, they gradually warm up to each other, or else there wouldn’t be much of a movie. Dying Young is split neatly into two halves. Part one is interminable banter between Victor and Hilary over their very different backgrounds. He goes to museums! She likes playing poker in sketchy bars! He eats steak tartare! She eats Velveeta! Part two follows when they’ve fallen in love (though their chemistry suggests that they mostly just tolerate each other), a love so powerful that it forces Victor’s leukemia into remission, at least for a little while.
Yeah, sure, there’s some teased drama when hunky handyman Gordon (Vincent D’Onofrio) shows up and mildly flirts with Hilary, but at no point should the viewer ever think he’s a real threat (even though Roberts has far more chemistry with D’Onofrio than she does with Scott). Interestingly, Marti Leimbach’s novel of the same name takes a darker direction, with a dysfunctional love triangle forming between the three, and Victor insisting that Hilary leave him in the end, when it’s heavily implied that he plans to commit suicide (or at least, give up on treatment). Its flawed heroine drives away crying, the tragic hero waving in her rearview mirror, presumably skulking away to die shortly thereafter.
The movie, however, is pure 1940s-style melodrama, right down to the hazy lens on the camera and the syrupy instrumental love theme (performed by the master himself, Kenny G). Victor ever-so-briefly considers stopping treatment, but after a teary confession of love from Hilary, he decides to keep fighting for another day (literally, the movie ends with the sun rising on a brand new day). Despite the movie being called Dying Young, no one actually dies in it.
Credit where credit is due: at least the movie has the temerity to show that the side effects of chemotherapy are usually a bit more serious than a cute pixie cut and maybe being a little tired. The script compensates (or rather, decompensates) for that by laying on the manipulation extra-thicc, particularly in the ending, when Hilary demands that Victor “keep fighting for us.” There’s a sinister thread in “sad sick person” movies, and it’s not just filmmakers’ reluctance to realistically depict the effects of both illness and treatment. It’s the idea that a character stricken with a life-threatening illness is all but obligated to be brave, and maybe even teach his or her loved ones a little something about dignity and temerity in the face of adversity, or else his or her story isn’t worth telling.
Victor is initially a self-pitying jerk, but, while he’s unlikable, it’s also completely understandable. Cancer sucks. His having to take years to finish his PhD because of sickness sucks. Facing the possibility of death before his life has barely begun sucks. Life dealt him a bad hand, he has every right to be a self-pitying jerk. Nevertheless, much like it magically cures mental illness, falling in love has a miraculous effect, and now Victor has a reason to be happy and keep fighting, no matter how miserable he feels much of the time.
Much like last year’s We Live in Time, this raises a perhaps unintentional but unavoidable question: what does this say about the people who don’t want to keep fighting? Even though a majority of Americans support the idea of assisted suicide for terminally ill people (though it’s currently only legal in 10 states), we still push a narrative that “bravery” in the face of illness means hanging in there as long as possible for the sake of your loved ones.
Undoubtedly, this is tied into our inability to accept death, let alone the idea that someone might choose to die. Either way, it’s a pernicious theme: sure, you might feel like fried dog shit 80% of the time, and there’s not much chance you’re going to feel better at any point, but don’t you owe it to your loved ones to keep feeling like fried dog shit just a little longer? Don’t you love them enough to try? You don’t want to be a coward, do you?