Heartland: Love, Danielle

Devin Sidell stars in this tragicomic tale based on her own experiences about a woman who undergoes preventative breast and ovarian surgery to ward off cancer.

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“Love, Danielle” is a movie about a woman’s impossible choice: risk a high chance of developing cancer that could end things while still young? Or undergo radical surgery that essentially cuts away essential parts of you before they have a chance to kill you, but incur life-altering changes including precluding the chance of bearing children?

Rather than wallow in pathos, Devin Sidell chose to chase laughs.

Based on her own real-life experiences, the star/co-writer (with Steven Sears) and producer of “Love, Danielle” decided to make something that will absolutely draw tears from you, but probably several times as many laughs. It’s a film that’s funny, heartfelt and even a little bit wise.

Danielle (Sidell) is a seemingly happily married woman who has just turned 35. She and her husband, Pat (Michael Roark), run a successful bakery, Patty Cakes, in Los Angeles and are ready to start a family. She’s extremely close to her sister, Amy (Jaime King), who’s currently going through tough times with breast cancer — after also losing their aunt to ovarian cancer.

Early on Danielle tests positive for the BRCA-1 gene, meaning she has an extremely high likelihood of developing cancer herself. The doctors say she can try to have children, but her window to do so is closing fast. Another option is to have a double mastectomy and removal of her uterus, ovaries, Fallopian tubes — “empty me out,” as she describes it — as a firewall measure.

Pat is a rock-solid guy, who Danielle knows is going to be there for her no matter her decision. She jokes about letting him choose the size and shape of her new boobs after reconstructive surgery. Still, the film delicately shows the balance a couple has to tread when one of them receives such a diagnosis, and at some point the lines of communication are going to be in need of mending — especially when it comes to the topic of children.

Complicating things is Danielle’s troubled relationship with her parents. They split a long time ago, and each have found a way to inflict trauma on their daughters and, even worse, seem to be in complete denial about it. Their mother, Candie (Lesley Ann Warren), was an alcoholic who got sober 25 years ago, and now her recovery network seems to be her primary one rather than the family.

Dad Bryce (Barry Bostwick) is an actor still feeling his oats from his role as a TV cowboy many years ago, and is unfailingly positive and eager to entertain, even when the people around him are in no mood to smile. He’s the sort of father who parachutes in when things are going well, and tends to slide out the door when they’re not.

Hanging around the edges of the story are Danielle’s best friend, Misty (Marianna Palka, who also directed the film) and her husband, Rob (Ian Owens), who often come over for sessions of Dungeons & Dragons and drinking. They’re expecting their first baby while Danielle is having her struggle, and are hurt when she —necessarily — needs to push them aside for awhile.

There are several sequences where Danielle undergoes anesthesia for her various procedures, and each time it summons troubling visions — of her and Amy’s difficult childhood, her yearning to have a child of her own, and of course the possibility of never waking up again, or not recognizing herself when she does.

There are some harrowing glimpses of Danielle’s body post-surgery, which I wondered how they portrayed so realistically in a low-budget film. Turns out Sidell turned the camera on herself several years ago after her own medical events, just in case she could ever do something with the footage. That’s just an astonishing commitment to her craft.

The music by Michael Teoli is disturbing when it needs to be, and uplifting and quirky much of the rest of the time. This is a really strong cast, each actor seeming to know just what ingredient they’re adding to the gumbo, and the direction consistently finds just the right tone as the story ping-pongs between grief and humor.

Sidell anchors things as Danielle, a regular woman facing extraordinary circumstances. Like a lot of us, she often feels like she’s one missed stroke from going under the waves, but the truth is she’s a lot more resilent than she credits herself.

I don’t know if the old adage is true that laughter is the best medicine, but “Love, Danielle” certainly provides a loving spoonful of it.