Although Kate's weakening body and Anna's day in court provide stern deadlines, the movie becomes oddly static. The actors rarely get a chance to dig into the material. The filmmakers burden even the most charged sequences with abrupt flashbacks or with montages set to songs more evocative than their scenes. (Especially haunting is Jimmy Scott's rendition of the David Byrne-Jerry Harrison classic "Heaven.")
When these actors do connect emotionally, they're potent. Diaz is an unexpected powerhouse: She doesn't hold anything back. She conveys the heroism and the tunnel vision of a mother's zealotry. Her confrontations with Baldwin tingle with humane commitment and intelligence. He's silky and strong as a deceptively slick lawyer whose passion equals hers. And Sofia Vassillieva is remarkable as Kate, fusing an angry young woman and a sweet, gentle little girl. Her Kate proves to be capacious in her curiosity, unbounded in her sympathy.
The film peaks when the sensitive Thomas Dekker, as her first love and fellow patient, brings out her humor and longing. Vassillieva does something vastly difficult with ease: She maintains the full personality of a person who is fading away.
