Now Is Good: Dakota Fanning's Last Rights
Oof, what a clunker this one promises to be. Here's the trailer for Oliver Parker's A Walk to Remember Here on Earth Now Is Good, the sopping wet saga about a 17-year-old girl living with chronic leukemia, desperately trying to "do everything as fast as [she] can" before the end.
The trailer's subtle about it, but ridding herself of that pesky hymen is young Tessa's Bucket List item number one. Barf. Isn't Dakota Fanning nine and wasn't her last film I Am Sam? This is a child and children are not sexual. Though I guess since losing one's virginity is just about the least sexual sexual act one can do (make? Have?), Dakota Fanning's sexual appeal is irrelevant. Still, I can't imagine any sort of chemistry existing betwixt her and newcomer Jeremy Irvine over there, no matter how good he was in War Horse.
Also, I am always baffled when casting directors make the decision to go with American actresses for a British role (I'm lookin' at you m'Lady Hathaway). There are literally thousands of precocious and young actresses for whom a British accent would spill trippingly over the tongue, without so much as a hint of American nasal. What about Effie from Skins? Someone pick Effie, I miss her.
Having employed all the tricks of the trade - the inevitably tragic end, the young, attractive couple, Flaming Lips' "Do You Realize"- Now Is Good is a movie clearly hand-crafted for one audience and one audience only: the tween. If you are an adult person, you will not see this movie, but you will try to nod understandingly when your 14-year-old daughter comes home weeping after she's seen it. Now is good but not for them, so let the tweens have a movie they can all their own. The rest of you, steer clear.