Proving that chemotherapy doesn’t kill off the healthy hormonal tidal waves of the average 16-year-old boy, Dylan Jamieson has a dying request.
Fishing with a football star? Forget it. Cancer-stricken Dylan (Michael Angarano) wants to switch his final wish from after-school-special to after-last-call. What he’d really like to do before he dies is spend a weekend alone with supermodel Nikki (Sunny Mabrey), and enjoy all of the privileges implied therein.
It’s a promisingly off-color premise for a movie, and “One Last Thing” has its satisfying “can’t believe they said that” moments. There is no percentage in making fun of dying-wish organizations, and director Alex Steyermark avoids that laugh-killing angle.
Instead, Steyermark stays inside the head of optimistic, randy young Dylan, who is realistic enough to know that sex would be a great thing to try before death, and naïve enough to think he can find a willing partner a la Kate Moss.
The problem for “One Last Thing” is the filming style, which remains firmly rooted in the straightforward, dull approach of exactly the after-school-special that Dylan would ridicule. There’s not a single interesting shot in the movie, nor any artistic or design touches that reflect the script’s dark material. The sharp words of first-time screenwriter Barry Stringfellow get lost in a series of bland filmmaking choices.
“One Last Thing” starts as a downer, and careens south from there. Not only is Dylan full of tumors and bound to die within weeks, his father (Ethan Hawke) died a few years before. Pity mom (Cynthia Nixon), who is destined to live alone in her house and already plays heavy metal tunes on the stereo to fight back the silence.
Dylan’s pick for the ultimate sympathy fling is no earth angel, either, though she certainly is descending. Nikki fights off her own tragic memories with booze and pills, and is losing modeling contracts before meeting Dylan amid a flurry of publicity at the dying boy’s audacious request.
Some of the best moments in “One Last Thing” involve Dylan’s buddies Slap and Ricky (Gideon Glick and Matthew Bush). Stringfellow’s script allows them to be real teenagers, at once full of sympathy, sarcasm, self-interest and solicitude.
We don’t care if you are dying, one of them sneers at Dylan, stop flipping channels and give me the remote control. They cook up a cable-access auction of Dylan’s possessions to raise money for his trip to chase Nikki in New York, including a few prized porn tapes.
Angarano (“Lords of Dogtown”) finds the right pitch for Dylan: sorry for what he’s doing to his mother but refusing to play the sainted martyr. Perhaps it’s Angarano’s striking resemblance to Disney icon Shia LaBeouf that gives “One Last Thing” its downscale television feel.
There’s good material in “One Last Thing.” Someone with a slightly more wicked touch, or a more oddball sensibility – I’m thinking Wes Anderson or Steven Soderbergh – could make it zing.
Staff writer Michael Booth can be reached at 303-820-1686 or mbooth@denverpost.com.
“One Last Thing” | ** RATING
R for profanity, drug use, mature situations|1 hour, 33 minutes|DARK COMEDY|Directed by Alex Steyermark; written by Barry Stringfellow; starring Cynthia Nixon, Michael Angarano, Matthew Bush, Gideon Glick and Sunny Mabrey|Opens today at Starz FilmCenter at the Tivoli.
