Smallscreen Reviews

Review: The Big C on Showtime a bittersweet dramedy

By April MacIntyre Aug 16, 2010, 4:26 GMT

The Big C Star- Laura Linney - 2010 CBS Summer Press Tour Party - Arrivals - The Tent - Beverly Hills, CA, USA © Chris Hatcher / PR Photos

Showtime took a big gamble putting "The Big C" out there as a dramedy.

These times we live in currently verge on bleak, with so much uncertainty. The Slater air-steward incident illuminated a wide swath of overworked, underpaid people who vicariously wished they could do a similar cathartic exit at their own jobs.

Cancer is a real threat for all of us, so many kinds, so few years we get to live anyway. None of us are escaping this mortal coil, but imagine you knew your end date.

What would you do? How would you spend your precious time left, and with who?

This is the core premise of "The Big C," and only someone as talented and luminous as Laura Linney could carry this ponderous heavy subject and make it work.

Linney has enormous help with an ensemble cast that is toplined with Andrea (Gabourey Sidibe), truly outstanding as a surly book smart teen whose weight issues become teacher Cathy Jamison's (Linney) new cause, post-Melanoma news.

What Sidibe and the other key people (husband, son, brother, neighbor) in Cathy's life do not know is that she is Stage Four Melanoma and her prognosis is bleak. Two years at best.

Three episodes made me a loyal follower of the series. The veneer of Cathy's bravado and denial crack by episode three, and her humanness, her fear begins to show. The relationships she has with her estranged husband Paul (Oliver Platt) and her irascible homeless brother Sean (John Benjamin Hickey) begin to shape up and shine. It's the scenes with her fourteen year old son Adam (Gabriel Basso) which got to me.

Brother Sean (Hickey) is comic relief as he self-righteously rants and froths over global warming, SUV's, waste and consumerism. He is a dynamic player and his scenes with his sister Cathy are interesting and off-kilter.

Neighbor widow Marlene (Phyllis Somerville) is withering away in her self-imposed lonliness, mourning her life which has all but passed on. All that's left are photos and a TV to keep the sound of human voices alive in her own home. It is her dog who stalks Cathy that tips Phyllis off first about Cathy's cancer, as the canine had smelled it on her deceased husband too.

The flaws for me were minimal; it looks like it was shot in Connecticut, not Minneapolis. The accents are not at all reminiscent of Minnesota and the way Cathy spends money in the first episode makes you think she is an heiress, not a teacher. The theme song is also grating.

Honestly, I have no idea where the writers will take us on Cathy's journey, but the three episodes that I got to view made me want to see more, and made me reflect on my own life, priorities and especially the people I appreciate and care for.

It also made me think about Christopher Hitchens' journey right now with "The Big C." Hitchens is a writer and pundit of sorts who I have enjoyed immensely for years, and always look forward to when he is booked on Bill Maher's HBO show. He's fighting esophageal cancer and his interview with The Atlantic is posted below.

I like him very much. I hope he beats the bleak odds he says are stacked against him.