Some of us use humor as a way to prevent from getting serious. Such is the case of fall-in-love-happily-ever-after-is-not-for-me Marley Corbett (Kate Hudson) who is about as noncommittal as any twenty-something bachelor. Life is just her, her bulldog, her posse of friends (Lucy Punch, Rosemarie DeWitt) and her wicker-basket on a bicycle in New Orleans.
Enter Dr. Goldstein (Gael Garcia Bernal) her doctor with some bad news. She needs a biopsy. In a moment of anesthesia Marley visits heaven where she finds God portrayed as Whoopi Goldberg playing Whoopi Goldberg. She gets three wishes. One is to learn to fly, one is for some money – $1,000,000 minus ½ that goes to taxes – and one yet to be decided. When Marley wakes from the biopsy and sees that dreams do come true, she begins to evaluate life in a new light, Especially when she learns she’s got only a few months to live with colon cancer.
The ordinary Kate Hudson flick would be sappy, rom-com annoying but in this tender tale of accurate emotions one moves through – denial, anger and acceptance – Hudson broadens her acting range. Similar to 50/50 (Seth Rogen) “A Little Bit of Heaven” takes the naughty single girl on a sympathetic journey of analyzing cancer from all angles….the guilty divorce parents (Treat Williams and Kathy Bates), the confused friends and Hudson’s inability to feel love for a new partner, when she feels this is not the time to feel anything at all. She’s dying, remember?
But we learn as an audience that in the final tender moments might be the time we should and could feel the most. For anybody who’s had loss to cancer, this movie takes us again on a realistic journey, and if you haven’t had cancer, might just teach you to appreciate your gift of life everyday. Three and a half tiaras