One Week: Joshua Jackson’s Best Work Since D2

Regardless of the content of the movie itself, “One Week” may always be best known as the movie that used youtube comment quotes in its advertising campaign rather than quotes of legitimate critics. The blogosphere went apeshit, calling it, “A new low for the movie industry.” Now, as for the movie:

This is what it's all aboot.

What would you do if you had one week to live? That’s the launching point of the Canadian movie “One Week.” The rhetorical question becomes a literal one in the opening scene when Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson) is informed that he has stage four cancer. He’s young, but the disease is particularly aggressive – they’ve found cancerous cells in his bloodstream and spreading. Essentially, he could go at any time.

Cue the identity crisis punctuated with quirk. Ben’s first thought? This will be a good excuse to call off his upcoming wedding, an affair he seems lukewarm about. He’s also relieved that he basically won’t need to go to work anymore. On the way home he purchases a motorcycle on a whim, and it’s not long before he sets out on an open-ended journey with the vague destination of “West.”

From that point, this becomes a roadtrip movie. Ben meets a series of characters on his criss-crossing path toward the Pacific. He gets more involved with some than others, but they each help him shape his thoughts on what’s left of his life. As episodic and formulaic as that may sound, most of it works well enough. Ben’s impending death gives him a crystal clear perspective, and the internal conflict that emerges pits passion vs. responsibility. The movie went places with this element of the story that I didn’t expect, and I’m not sure I agree with, personally, but it was messy and complicated and honest. It gave me something to think about.

The subdued voice of the narrator (Campbell Scott) tells much of the story here, which helps give a clear delivery to the deadpan humor throughout the movie. Jackson is fine as the lead, but Liane Balaban sort of steals the show as his fiance, Samantha, by being funnier than him in her handful or so of scenes. Her character won me over to the point that it really changed my interpretation of the end of the movie.

Honey, I shrunk the kid from Mighty Ducks.

From the style of humor all the way to the story’s end, “One Week” is a mature film. Despite the focus on cancer and death, it avoids the pitfall of melodrama. In fact, it may be a little too clean considering the grave subject matter – it would be believable, maybe even normal, to see characters behaving irrationally in a scenario like this. Still, it was somewhat refreshing to see a movie show some emotional restraint and basically do the opposite of the “go too big with every scene” soap opera crap. To break this down in youtube comment terms, I wouldn’t say, “Best. Movie. Ever.” But I lol’d a few times.

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