It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Sarah Russell (Amber Tamblyn) is an associate buyer at Macy's and aspires to get into medical school. She finds out that she has leukemia. She's going home to tell her parents (Tim DeKay, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio). She holds off when her parents tell her that she got into Northwestern University. She reconnects with old boyfriend Evan Carroll. There is something dark in the past with her next door neighbors Lorainne Morrissey (Jennifer Ehle) and Howard Morrisey (Henry Czerny). She wonders if her leukemia is karma for past deeds.The movie is a little too precious with the secret. This is not really a mystery movie. I'm fine with holding off the reveal but it lasts about 10-20 minutes too long. It gets a little annoying that the movie won't say it out loud. Tamblyn delivers a very compelling performance. It's a great little movie after the reveal with Sarah struggling to connect with Lorainne. Jennifer Ehle also gives a great full performance. It never gets too surprising and the movie is a traditional tear-jerker.

This is a movie that could have had me crying my eyes out, but one bad actress ruined the entire movie. The grieving mother seemed to think her best acting attribute was her lip quiver. The movie was also unrealistic in its family dynamics. You don't go from being sad mom for 6 years and then just overnight become super mom. It would have been a gripping story, but the person I as I mom, I know that we have the instinct that something is wrong, but mom & dad were just happy in their oblivion. I would have liked the story to have extended a bit with the girl and her family, but I guess we are left at the end knowing what we are supposed to know. I would not recommend watching this movie for the time it takes to watch it.

As the movie opens in Chicago, we see the "Russell girl" Amber Tamblyn as Sarah Russell, college graduate who aspires to medical school but has not been accepted yet and is working in Chicago in retail. But we also see her going to a clinic to get what turns out to be some bad news, she is sick with a form of leukemia. So she travels home to Staunton, Illinois, to "burn off" some of her vacation. But her real reason was the illness, and she wasn't sure how she would handle or even tell her family.Across the street lives Jennifer Ehle as Lorainne Morrisey, with her family which includes two teen-age sons. We find out there had been a tragedy about 6 years earlier, Lorainne lost her young daughter and had never gotten over it.The movie has two main stories, how Sarah deals with her illness, and her old boyfriend whom she wants to be with, but doesn't want to burden him with her problems. The other is how Lorainne can get over her loss and live life again. Not a great movie, but a good enough one.SPOILERS: Sarah had been involved in the tragedy, she was the babysitter, trying to quell a fight between the two sons when the daughter fell down the stairs into the basement, and dying from her injuries. Lorainne had never forgiven Sarah, and was mean to her when she saw her. She was also angry at her husband for not fixing the basement door to prevent what happened. But finally we learn that Lorianne had bought the wrong screws, that is why the door was not fixed. The tragedy was really no one's fault, sometimes bad things happen to good people. Sarah eventually told her parents and friends, and was also accepted into medical school, but as the movie ends she is focusing on her treatment.

Sappy story; sappy acting; sappy music - and to make it even worse, it's excruciatingly slow. Please shoot me.There is no story here, or character development or anything other than depressing music, long-faced actors, and interminably long scenes. By the first break, you don't even know what it's about - except miserably, self-absorbed people.And the typical movie-of-the-week production values don't add anything to it either.The only thing worse was the Hallmark commercial at the first break. But that, at least, was mercifully short. In fact, that's what this movie seems to be - a sappy 30-second commercial padded out to two hours.