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| ‘Dying Young’ By Joe Brown Washington Post Staff Writer June 21, 1991 | ||
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Taking a cue from the popularity of "Ghost" and "Flatliners," Hollywood is trying to Get Serious, and deal with big issues of mortality and the afterlife. But it's hard to imagine crowds lining up around the block to see a movie whose title suggests terminal illness. So the summer bummer "Dying Young" has been baited with current hot-property Julia Roberts.
As in "Pretty Woman," Roberts plays a spunky, beautiful working girl who hires herself out to a wealthy, good-looking young man. Only this time she's emotionally for hire.
After catching her boyfriend with another woman, a disillusioned Hilary (Roberts) moves back to Oakland with her chatterbox mom. But she can only endure so much Home Shopping Network and tales of how the neighbor girls are faring in marriage and careers.
So after a few Mary Tyler Moore moments in which Roberts wanders the big city, she spots a newspaper ad for an at-home nurse and interviews at a mansion on San Francisco's Nob Hill. Despite her lack of credentials, she's hired by shy leukemia patient Victor Geddes (Campbell Scott) to be his companion and nurse during his painful chemotherapy.
Scott has Given Up On Life. You can tell from his apartment, which is nearly devoid of pop-culture clutter and kept in sepulchral shade. Big surprise: Scott falls in love, Roberts quickly follows, and soon he's off chemotherapy, they've split from the home of his wealthy, dominating father, rented a Met Home-quaint cottage on the gorgeous Mendocino coast, his hair grows back, and they're running down cliffside paths, charming the yokels at local bars and giggling over "Jeopardy" -- Scott knows all the highbrow answers; Roberts is an ace at TV trivia.
Then Scott starts getting sick again.
Acted in a sickbed whisper by Roberts and Scott, both of whom are quite credible, "Dying Young" was directed by Joel Schumacher ("Flatliners") with what passes for sensitivity and restraint in Hollywood. To his credit, Schumacher doesn't glamorize disease -- the first half of the movie is heavy on vomit scenes -- and doesn't overtly try to squeeze tears out of his audience. James Newton-Howard's very Northern California guitar-piano-and-wind chimes score takes care of that.
Illness is seldom portrayed or even discussed in contemporary movies -- producers are terrified of upsetting or depressing their audiences even for a moment -- so any attempt at inspiring compassion and commitment in the face of difficulty should be commended. It's hard to sit through "Dying Young" without sensing a thematic undercurrent about AIDS. Perhaps "Dying Young" can be seen as a way of stirring sympathy in the mainstream moviegoing audiences who stayed away in droves from "Longtime Companion," a superior film on a similar subject.
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