Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on December 2011

An orphaned, unhealthily death-obsessed teen (Dennis’s kid Henry Hopper) meets and falls in love with a terminally ill young woman with a lust for life (Mia Wasikowska) in this Gus Van Sant misfire, and do precious things for a while. She shares her love of birds; he tells her his best friend is the ghost of a young kamikaze pilot, with whom he plays Battleship a lot. It’s not terrible, and the acting’s good, but it comes down on the wrong side of the line between sensitive and maudlin. Be prepared for something a bit twee, self-conscious and morbidly cute. Go rent Harold and Maude instead.