A Little Bit of Heaven (2011)

Directed by: Nicole Kassell | 106 minutes | comedy, drama, fantasy, romance | Actors: Kate Hudson, Gael Garcia Bernal, Lucy Punch, Kathy Bates, Treat Williams, Romany Malco, Rosemarie DeWitt, Whoopi Goldberg

The high-spirited Marley (Kate Hudson) is whistling through life, has a fun job in advertising that she does well at and is surrounded by a group of good friends with whom she spends her free time. House, tree, animal is not her dream, she is enjoying herself on her own. But then she starts to feel a little less physically and after a few visits to the hospital she gets the diagnosis that no one wants to hear: cancer. This illness forces her to look at her life differently. On the bright side, she meets the lovely doctor (Gael Garcia Bernal) Julian, who ensures that something positive also comes out of this situation.

Kate Hudson broke through in 2000 with ‘Almost Famous’, for which she received her only Oscar nomination to date. The reason she was never nominated again after this is that she has become a bit of a one trick pony ever since. Kate mainly makes rom-coms, in which her biggest job is to be the shining centerpiece. ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ is also a romantic comedy, but this one has a slightly different premise.

Despite the fact that there is really something wrong with ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’, it is still nice to look away. Firstly, this is because there are good actors like Gael Garcia Bernal and Kathy Bates in it. The latter in particular is very good as an overprotective mother. Bernal’s task in this film is mainly ‘to be the ideal man’, but he does so with gusto. In spite of everything, ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ has its heart in the right place and it is not too tearful about cancer, which is sometimes refreshing in a Hollywood film.

The negative point of ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ is that Hudson does get Hollywood cancer, she goes through chemo and gets sick and death, but she still looks beautiful, just a little paler. In fact, for a large part of the film she seems to have little physical trouble with her life-threatening illness, she only suffers from a much worse mood.

But if you as a viewer are not too attached to a realistic story – of course it is a romantic comedy so see it as a fairy tale – ‘A Little Bit of Heaven’ is really a nice film, where you should not think too much .