Cystic fibrosis sufferer seventeen-year-old Stella Grant (Haley Lu Richardson)
is in hospital for her latest round of treatment when she spots brooding new patient Wil Newman (Cole Sprouse).
He’s everything she’s not: she obsessively follows the rules and he’s the original
bad boy of cystic fibrosis, right down to having an infection that means he no
longer qualifies for the lung transplant that's a CF sufferer's big chance at a regular life.
Thanks to the risks of cross-infection,
all CF patients have to stay at least six feet apart from each other (yes, that’s
not what the title says; yes, the film explains it), which obviously will never
be a problem for these two. After all, they have almost nothing in common and no reason to
spend time together, let alone fall in love, right? Right? It's not like opposites attract or anything...
Anyone who's owned a mobile phone for more than five minutes will spend much of this film wondering why the teens are so angsty about touching when there's a whole world of options for getting each other off literally in the palm of their hands - but this is clearly not that kind of film, and the carnal side of their desires is barely touched upon. Theirs is a connection of the heart, not the groin... though a bit more of that (or even just a discussion of the available options) would have made this a lot more memorable.
Without the endless naked selfies and graphic sexting this story desperately needed, what remains is utterly
predictable in just about every direction, right down to a side character (who’s
obviously doomed from the start) getting a big moment declaring he’s going to overcome his
fears and finally live his life right. No prizes for guessing what happens in the very next scene.
Still, a genre film can be satisfying in its own right if it ticks the right boxes, and this does a decent job of balancing teen angst with sexy longing with "aww the cute teens are doomed". It's utterly medically indefensible and a complete fantasy on that front, but a grim slice of reality this is not: you're here for the hot teens in forbidden love, not any serious insights into a chronic and terminal condition.
That said, the medical side of things is clearly just an obstacle to their love, nothing more. The balance between the demands of the romance weepie and the hard-and-fast rules around their medical condition is really the only thing (aside from a pair of decent performances from the leads) that makes this interesting. Stella learns to love, but any expression of that love will most likely kill her; the rest of the film might be cheesy, but that conflict gives it enough drama to stagger through to the end.
Still, a genre film can be satisfying in its own right if it ticks the right boxes, and this does a decent job of balancing teen angst with sexy longing with "aww the cute teens are doomed". It's utterly medically indefensible and a complete fantasy on that front, but a grim slice of reality this is not: you're here for the hot teens in forbidden love, not any serious insights into a chronic and terminal condition.
That said, the medical side of things is clearly just an obstacle to their love, nothing more. The balance between the demands of the romance weepie and the hard-and-fast rules around their medical condition is really the only thing (aside from a pair of decent performances from the leads) that makes this interesting. Stella learns to love, but any expression of that love will most likely kill her; the rest of the film might be cheesy, but that conflict gives it enough drama to stagger through to the end.
- Anthony Morris
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