Film: 'Miss You Already'

This is one for the 'weepie-lovers' and, by golly, does it lard it on thickly!
Despite a cast almost to die for - Drew Barrymore, Toni Collette, Paddy Considine (for whom I've developed rather a crush) as well as that hottie, Dominic Cooper - all additional to a strong script (well. for the most part), when stripped down I found this essentially formulaic stuff.

I'm sure I wasn't alone on immediately thinking of 'Beaches' when I heard that the basic story involved two women, best friends since children, their relationship fractured following an almighty row after which they stop seeing each other, only for the impending death of one to bring them together in climactic scenes of forgiveness and reconciliation.

The Barrymore character at the start is an American child coming to London where, at her new school, she and Collette immediately become best buddies, a solid friendship which lasts through adolescence and on into their respective marriages - Collette to wild, anarchic Cooper, whom marriage soon tames into reliable domesticity, and Barrymore to oil-rig worker Considine, periodically absent from their houseboat on the River Thames, the two of them trying hard to have children with no success, while Collette has two little brats, cheeky and making pronouncements and responses beyond their scant years (ugh! again!). The main human drama is Collette's incipient breast cancer, (not a 'spoiler' as it's revealed near the film's start) and which, after failed chemotherapy (involving, of course, dramatic hair loss/removal) soon requires a double mastectomy. It's Barrymore who tries to provide a brave anchor for Collette's understandable mood swings, though it's not always successful.

Acting throughout is very strong, with Collette carrying the honours for a role which requires a wide gamut of emotions in her behaviour, much of it heart-breaking, though one episode being dismayingly callous. However, the other three members of the central quartet are terrific too.
Apart from the two little kids mentioned already, I was also turned off by the frequent intrusion of 'mood-setting' songs on the soundtrack (why can't they just let the story speak for itself?), though most of them aren't much more than snippets. However, one can forgive the inclusion of REM's 'Losing My Religion' at any time.

Director Catherine Hardwicke and writer Morweena Banks keep events moving forward at a fair lick, though I have to say that there really weren't that many surprises, even though the emotions of the story did pull even me in.

Overall I felt a bit let down. Full marks for top-class acting all round, but some of my blog followers will already know of my strong antipathy against displaying overloaded sentiment in the way of 'entertainment', a school to which I don't subscribe. Others will love this film, I'm sure. But for me it gets the distinctly average................5.