Mark Reviews Movies: CLOUDS (2020)

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Review by Mark Dujsik | October 15, 2020

Too many movies about dying, especially a few recent ones involving teenagers, seem to go out of their way to evade the subject. They're so caught up in romance or comedy or some form of quirkiness that it's almost as if the harsh reality of what's happening is an afterthought. The story's final act, of course, will finally get to the point, but after so much distance and so many distractions, the characters' ultimately confrontation with the fact of death often feels like an emotionally desperate grasp for the audience's tears.

Screenwriter Kara Holden and director Justin Baldoni's Clouds does not evade the topic of death and dying. It is frank and direct on that subject, because the film knows that its story and, in particular, its main character deserve that level of basic dignity and respect. To make a movie about dying in which the characters don't talk about it, fear it, feel completely overwhelmed by it, and have difficulty thinking about or doing anything else is an inherently dishonest act. This film's honesty is its greatest strength.

The story here is based on a true one (specifically, Laura Sobiech's memoir Fly a Little Higher). After years of fighting osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer that affects bone, Zach Sobiech, a teenage musician, was given a terminal diagnosis. This was just before his final year of high school. Knowing he had only about a year to live, he formed a band with a friend, recorded a few songs, and had one of those tunes become a viral hit online.

That's the basic framework of this narrative film, but Holden and Baldoni aren't content to simply give us an inspirational story about a dying teen achieving his dream before it's too late. That element is here, for sure, but what makes the film special is that the music and dream-chasing of the tale feel like an afterthought. This is a film primarily about how the knowledge of dying affects this young man's life, his relationships, and all of the people who know and love him.

During the credits, we see footage of the real Sobiech, his friends, and his family. Some of the latter groups appear behind-the-scenes, meeting the actors playing them in the film, but the most telling moment for how the filmmakers have approached this story arrives in a behind-the-scenes shot of another movie. Baldoni shot a short web documentary about Sobiech before the teenager's death, and as he oversees the filming of an interview, a camera catches the director wiping his eyes. Just from the film alone, we don't need to see or be told how much this young man and his story touched the filmmaker, but actually seeing that brief moment does help explain why this film is as affecting and effective as it is.

The film's Zach is played by Fin Argus, a musician and actor whose performance here gives us a sense of a full person, not just a disease and a diagnosis. After Zach receives his terminal diagnosis, he decides to continue going to school. His first assignment upon returning is a practice essay for college, which forces him to reassess how he'll spend the months of life he has remaining.

Apart from the eventual rise to national prominence, the story primarily revolves around a series of relationships. They're all treated with an equal level of wisdom, maturity, and thoughtfulness. There are the bonds with his mother Laura (Neve Campbell), who tries to put on a brave face but cannot all the time, and father Rob (Tom Everett Scott), who loses himself in work. There are necessary but seemingly impossible scenes here, such as when Laura and Zach must go over the young man's final arrangements and when Rob, after having a final heart-to-heart with his son about love, has to admit to his wife that he cannot process the truth of what's about to happen.

In terms of friendships and more, the story focuses on Zach's relationships with two young women: Sammy (Sabrina Carpenter), his life-long friend and musical partner, and Amy (Madison Iseman), who is supposed to be on a date with Zach around the time emergency surgery reveals that his cancer has spread. There's a particularly lovely scene, filled with affection and melancholy, when the two friends realize and admit that, separately, each of them has had shared dream of how their relationship would evolve over the years and maybe decades. A lesser story might transform this into a love triangle of sorts or invent some conflict between the two young women, but this one respects the maturity and compassion of these characters.

As for the romance, it is as much about the cruel truth that would could have been cannot be as it is about living for the moment. Zach has to grapple with the fear that the hurt his death will bring to Amy might outweigh the young-love joy of their remaining time together.

Zach wrestles with a lot here—the slow but unstoppable decline of his body, the sudden terror of panic attacks, waves of depression and anger, the constant uncertainty of what his now-short life should be and whether or not anything still possesses worth. The film doesn't dodge or attempt to paint a falsely hopeful or romantic face on this truth, these emotions, and this fear. It confronts them, explores them, and allows these characters to discuss them, plainly and without deflection.

It's a tough film, for sure, but a rewarding one, too. Clouds may lean into its inspirational story elements as this tale progresses, but the film never loses sight of the real pain, fear, and grief that define this story.

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