Miss You Already – Film Review by Frank L.

Directed by Catherine Hardwicke
Stars: Drew Barrymore, Toni Collette, Dominic Cooper

Milly (Toni Collette) and Jess (Drew Barrymore) have been best friends all their lives. Now in their late thirties they are still best friends. Milly is in the fast lane of success married to Kit (Dominic Cooper) who is a very good husband for her but he for all his own achievements is in her shadow.

They did not initially plan to get married but accidents happen. They have two kids who are fun and they are attentive and loving parents. Jess has been less successful but she finds eventually her man Jago (Paddy Considine), who is being recycled and they live on a house boat in the Thames. They are trying to have a baby. As Jess receives good news on the pregnancy stakes; Milly receives bad news about her body.

Catherine Hardwicke (“Thirteen”, “Twilight”) has set this friendship in London on the Thames. It is a very hip world. Everyone and everything is glamorous other than Jago who is an oil rig worker-a big distance from the glitzy executive world of Kit and Milly. Tensions inevitably arise as Milly and Kit have to come terms with a new reality. Their marriage comes under strain. Milly notwithstanding her long standing friendship with Jess has a fairly selfish streak. She is the dominant force in the friendship. However Jess has her pregnancy and the dependable Jago. With a great deal of elan Hardwicke drives this comic tragedy forward. She manages to steer the characters away from sentimentality and even if Kit and Milly’s last fling is a bit fanciful it does demonstrate the strength of their friendship. In addition throughout the entire film Hardwicke directs a series of impressive cameo roles, the most delicious of which was that of Milly’s wigmaker.

In this comfortable, zany, privileged world Hardwicke brings her characters through the reality of life and death as well as tasting the pleasures of having a bit on the side. Each of the four characters are believable but Milly and Jess are the power houses. It is their relationship which Hardwicke explores.

Kit and Jago are but mere appendages. The film is refreshing in that its perspective is that of the women who are the ones that drive the plot and are central to the entire.