My Life Without Me

Released: 2003
Drama
Director: Isabel Coixet
Starring: Scott Speedman, Sarah Polley, Mark Ruffalo
Running Time: 106 minutes
Rated: R
 
The breakdown:  A woman learns of her terminal illness and instead of telling her loved ones, decides to make a bucket list and carry out some small goals.

This was a movie I had never heard of and to tell the truth there wasn't much good about it.
It was a little less than mediocre.
A young married mother goes to the hospital after passing out.  She finds out that she has cancerous tumors in both her ovaries and it's spread to her stomach and liver.  Had she been older, they could've operated, but with her youth, the disease spreads so fast there's nothing they can do.
She takes the news better than most might, but she decides it would only make her family sad and decides she doesn't want them to know.
She makes a list of things she always wanted to do but never has.  She wants to sleep with someone other than her only lover, her husband.  She wants another man to fall in love with her.  She wants to go on a small vacation with her husband, blah, blah, blah.
There's nothing really good for me to review with the exception of Mark Ruffalo's performance as the woman's boyfriend.  She doesn't tell him much, but he knows she's married.  His character is already emotionally damaged when he comes into the story, but he plays the vulnerability role well.
My problem with the main character is that she thinks it's ok to cheat on her husband since she's dying.  If she loves him, which she claims to, I'm not sure why she feels the need to have sex with someone else and have another man fall in love with her, just so that she can die on him too.  Some of her "goals" are incredibly selfish.  I just couldn't enjoy this one.

Skip this movie if you have any inkling of seeing it.
1 out of 5 for Ruffalo's role.