If you choose to watch "Don’t Say Good Luck" in public, just know you may be boarding your flight with mascara running down your face. This is one of those emotional movies that will have you crying in public, although perhaps that is not such a bad thing.
As they say, crying cleanses the soul.
And while you may think you are crying because of the movie, you might find yourself crying over your own experiences too.
Cancer has a particularly cruel way of doing that. It is a word that has touched so many families, whether through a diagnosis, sitting beside someone through treatment or losing someone you love.
"Don’t Say Good Luck" taps into that reality through Sophie (Sunny Sandler), a teenager navigating school, friendships and a budding passion for theatre while her mother Elizabeth (Melanie Lynskey), is living with terminal cancer.
It is a story about growing up while confronting the possibility of losing the person who helped you grow.
With Adam Sandler serving as a producer, I was half expecting some of that familiar Sandler comedy to creep in somewhere because, however, this is certainly not in his "Grown Ups" wheelhouse.
Instead, the film sits with illness, grief and the uncomfortable reality of carrying on with ordinary life when nothing feels ordinary anymore.
"Don’t Say Good Luck" asks what happens to a family when cancer becomes part of its everyday life, and how you keep living when you know time is running out.
What makes Sophie and Elizabeth’s story particularly affecting is that the film understands cancer does not only belong to the person who receives the diagnosis. It rearranges the lives of everyone around them and sadly, so many can attest to this.
Sophie is still trying to figure out who she is, but she is being confronted with the possibility of losing her mother at an age when teenagers believe their parents will always be there.
Elizabeth, meanwhile, is trying to prepare her daughter for a future she knows she will not be part of, while still giving her permission to be young, have fun and chase the things that make her happy.
This is where the musical theatre becomes an important part of Sophie’s story rather than simply sitting in the background.
Her involvement in "Waitress" gives her somewhere to put emotions she cannot always articulate in real life. A musical gives its characters the freedom to sing the things that would feel impossible to say aloud.
That is also what makes musical storytelling so effective when dealing with grief, love and loss. A conversation can tell us that someone is hurting, but a song can make us sit inside that feeling for a few minutes.
The music stretches the emotion, gives it a voice and, in this case, brings Sophie’s private world into the open.
For anyone who has attached a particular song to a person, a breakup, a memory or a moment in their life, that feeling will be familiar. Music has a strange ability to take us somewhere we were not planning to go, bringing back people, places and feelings we thought we had left behind.
"Don’t Say Good Luck" understands that. Its songs are not simply there to move the story along; they become part of how Sophie processes what is happening around her.
By bringing music into a story about illness and loss, the film taps into something deeply human: when words fall short, a song can carry the weight for us.
Lynskey is particularly good at making Elizabeth feel like a mother first and a cancer patient second. She still worries about Sophie, still wants to know what is happening in her life, and still wants her daughter to enjoy being young.
Her illness is a huge part of their reality, but it does not become her entire personality.
Sandler brings that same awkwardness to Sophie, who is caught in a place many children of sick parents will recognise: wanting to be there for your parent while also wanting to carry on with your own life.
You can see her trying to process things that are far too big for her age, while still worrying about the things teenagers worry about.
What I liked about their relationship is that it does not suggest there is a perfect way to deal with a parent having cancer.
Sophie does not suddenly become wise beyond her years and Elizabeth cannot protect her from every difficult emotion. They argue, they laugh, they make memories and they carry on.
That is where the story can hit close to home, even for someone who has never experienced cancer.
How often do we treat an ordinary Tuesday with the people we love as though it is guaranteed to happen again? We postpone the visit, the phone call, the family dinner or telling someone how much they mean to us because there will always be another weekend.
★★★ (3/5): A tender and moving musical drama that finds genuine heart in its story of terminal illness, family and growing up, even if some of its emotional moments feel a little too neatly packaged.
culture_thenational@nationalmg.co.za