My Life Without Me (2003)

"My Life Without Me" is another movie I've watched many many times.  And it's kinda sad so I'm probably pretty morbid but I really like the script which I bought from Script Fly and the performances which are really great.

This movie opens with a rain scene which I love in movies:

At the beginning of the movie, 23 year old Ann, has two kids, Penny and Patsy, and a husband named Don and they live in a trailer behind her mom's house. Then she starts getting severe stomach pains.

She goes to the hospital and her doctor turns out to be Bucky Haight from "Hard Core Logo" (Julian Richings)!  He is great! Even all the smaller parts in this movie are great.

What follows is a list of things she wants to do.  Surreal things.

This movie made me ask myself questions that I still think about.  Mainly if you were dying is it fair not to tell anyone?  Could you handle it calmly and not freak out?  Could you refrain from immediately boarding on a plane for Europe? Is it okay to have an affair and could you really go back to your husband and sleep with him and feel no guilt at all?

This was the first time I saw Mark Ruffalo in a movie and I fell in love with him as far as falling in love with a character on screen goes.  I liked how his character Lee slowly inches his chair up to Ann's sleeping body in a laundromat and how he watches her sleep in a non-creepy way, I swear.

 not creepy

One of the scenes I love the most in this movie and there are many is the one below where he reads to her as they're all wrapped up in each other on the floor.  But the story is about death so she throws the book across the room and offers no explanation. And he doesn't ask for one and they go on....

I also like how the movie ends.  It's not a bunch of people crying.  It's not melodramatic or hysterical or cliche. And the ending includes scenes of even the minor characters transforming and growing--which is rare and beautiful.