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A heavy-handed bit of treacle about young British lads learning to live with impending death, "Ways to Live Forever" plays like an after-school special stuffed full with life-lesson moments. Except for a terrific, sensitive performance by Robbie Kay in the lead role, I'd have a hard time recommending it.
Kay plays Sam, a nearly 13-year-old boy suffering from leukemia. This is his third time around with the brutal form of cancer, and he's smart enough to know that if he's not receiving the same intensive treatment he did the first two times, it's because the doctors don't hold much hope for him.
When his precocious sister (Eloise Barnes) asks about his health at the family dinner table, Sam blurts out matter-of-factly that he's going to die. His mother (Emilia Fox) reacts with protective horror, while his dad (Ben Chaplin) behaves with typical nonchalance.
One of the areas where writer/director Gustavo Ron, working from the book by Sally Nicholls, fails to connect the dots is in the relationship between Sam and his father. It's obvious dad has built up a wall of estrangement through years of denial about Sam's condition.
And yet almost with a flip of a switch, their problems disappear and they're a happily functioning family unit again.
Sam's best friend is Felix (Alex Etel), who's dying of the same disease. Slightly older, acerbic, with a bald head and confined to a wheelchair or crutches, Felix is the slightly bad influence who pushes Sam to try things he oughtn't to.
Their sunny homeschool teacher (Greta Scacchi) challenges them to find a way to live forever by leaving behind some kind of art to commemorate their lives. Sam begins a paste-up journal with an accompanying video diary in which he bluntly talks about his disease, his fears and his fading hopes.
Young Kay shines in these moments, with his forthright stare and self-deprecating wisecracks. We like Sam, root for him to overcome. But this is not a movie about striving to defeat death, but learning to accept it with dignity and grace.
2.5 Yaps