Now is Good

UK Release: 19th September 2012

Watched in the Cinema: Thursday 31st January 2013

Rating: 12A

Genre: Drama, Romance

Runtime: 1hr 43mins

Tagline: Live every moment, love every minute

My Review: Now Is Good surprised me. In a good way. It was much better than I was expecting it to be. I’d heard it was a ‘weepy’ and while, no matter how hard I tried, the tears did eventually fall it wasn’t just about how upsetting it was. It was Tessa’s journey, an ordinary teen girl just like me, and her path to acceptance over her coming death. 

I loved how it wasn’t set in London and that it was very British in nature. It had the comedy, the quirkiness and also the incredible acting that we’ve come to expect from quality British films. Olivia Williams and Paddy Considine played some of the best performances of their careers and while Kaya Scodelario’s character wasn’t too much of a departure from her role in Skins she still brought a lot of humanity to the character. The leads too were outstanding considering the extraordinarily difficult and delicate nature of the story. Jeremy Irvine has only previously been in War Horse and Great Expectations but if his performances in these three films are anything to go by he shows a lot of versatility and promise. And then Tessa herself, played by Dakota Fanning was the greatness surprise of all. I hadn’t been much of a fan of Fanning’s work before seeing her in The Runaways a little while ago. I thought she was incredible in that, however I believe Now Is Good is her best performance to date. Not only is playing a dying teenage girl difficult, but as an American she played a British teenager excellently and it was only near the end that I remembered that this wasn’t her native tongue. She really took hold of the role and made the film the emotionally heartbreaking film that it is.

The cinematography too, was surprisingly as it was much more creative than I was expecting: the graphic opening sequence soundtracked to a remix of Lana Del Rey set the tone brilliantly for the rest of the film.

It was very watchable and kept me interested until the very end. As with many British films it can turn from comedy to tragedy and back to comedy again, often many times within a scene and it’s such fun to watch. Ultimately though it really is the most devastatingly upsetting movie I’ve seen in a while, but thankfully not in a cliched try-hard way but in an excruciatingly honest way. It wasn’t until the very end that I could no longer fight back the tears and that wasn’t because Tessa was dying. It was Olivia Williams’s performance as her mother, rawly expressing her grief as her daughter slipped away from her. That’s what got me. 

Now Is Good is definitely worth giving a go - so long as you’re prepared for tears no matter how much you don’t want them!

Score: 8/10