Irreplaceable You is a 2018 comedy drama about a couple who have known each other since they were children, destined to be together until death do them apart.
The thing about director Stephanie Laing‘s Irreplaceable You is that, even as it ultimately doesn’t hold up as well it should, you can’t help but think about it for a long time after it’s over. In my review, I wrote that I felt disconnected, that the movie overall didn’t ring as authentic as I’d hoped, but even now, nearly a year later, I find myself recalling most Gugu Mbatha-Raw and her efforts to make this work. That’s gotta say something, enough to give the movie a second look.
Doing so, I felt justified, in both my original appraisal and my thoughts on the lead. While yes, still, the movie doesn’t have the legs to really strike as emotionally as it intends, there’s no placing blame on Mbatha-Raw, who owns this role with stirring confidence. She plays Abbie, a lovely young woman in love with and engaged to Sam (Michiel Huisman), a guy she’s been best friends with since they were little kids. All is going well, and the couple are thinking of the next step in their relationship … living together. This is given more weight though when they think she might be pregnant. It seems only the best is yet to come.
Unfortunately, their visit to the doctor isn’t a good one, and the good news they were expecting becomes the absolute worst. Abbie has cancer. Terminal. Now, with only months to live, she’s got decisions to make, and the film follows her journey through hopeful treatment and therapy to what to do about Sam … after all, he’s still young and needs to move on.
Written by Bess Wohl, the movie mixes in a lot of humor, the young couple trying at first to deal with the jarring reality with an edgy approach. It actually kind of works at first, the dialogue and delivery grounded, though after a bit, doesn’t feel quite so authentic. Either way, let’s skip the larger story, one that has Abbie bouncing around from point A to B and back again in closing circles. Mbatha-Raw does remarkable work in the transformation, slowly changing as the story presses on, convincing at every turn that she is slowly slipping away. Stripping away some of the clutter around this, it’s rather moving.
I love what she does early in the doctor’s office, her character truly believing that her body is with child, telling how she feels something is there, this light in her eyes, this spark of hope and wonder for a possible future as a mother starting to glow around her, only to be told it’s not a baby at all. She stares straight ahead as a bit of narration (another weakness in the story) layers over the action, but it’s impossible not to fall into Abbie’s sudden, jarring fear. Watch how subtly Mbatha-Raw lets her face slip into sorrow, and how weighty it feels as you wonder what you would do if you were her.
There is more. Mbatha-Raw must carry a familiar burden in a movie plot that has been done many times before, the main character facing a cancerous death and dealing with all that comes with that. However, to her credit, she doesn’t play Abbie for the high notes, simply keeping the young woman in a state of change, looking for hope and understanding where she can. While the movie sometimes lets her down with its tonal ups and downs, Mbatha-Raw handles well what she can, effortlessly lulling us into Abbie’s troubling odyssey. It’s really good work.
I can’t say Irreplaceable You really improves with a second look, but on the other hand, I found myself more appreciating how well Mbatha-Raw takes to the difficult mix of drama and comedy. She’s a strong presence, a woman who has extraordinary beauty but able to feel unbelievably real. There’s great sincerity in her performance, enough so that it almost overcomes the problems dampening the corners of this movie. Sometimes, the parts are better than the whole, and for Mbatha-Raw in this story, that’s entirely the case. Watch her and see what I mean.