Unsentimental journey

>> A patient battles cancer in Chin Up!

by JONATHAN GOLDSTEIN

Thirty-year-old Emma (Karin Viard), pregnant with her first child, is diagnosed with an advanced stage of breast cancer. Her doctor tells her that the treatment will be incompatible with her pregnancy, and he encourages her to abort. Regardless, Emma decides to continue with the pregnancy in the face of her fatal illness.

In her first feature, director Solveig Anspach gives us an unflinchingly intimate (and partially autobiographical) film about a young woman dealing with her own physical deterioration. As Emma's condition worsens, the mundane difficulties of life continue; she must negotiate the idiosyncracies of family, the well-meaning curiosity of friends and the economic reality of being ill (there's a scene where she watches a promo video for prosthetic breasts that looks like one of the mock ads in The Kentucky Fried Movie).

Ultimately, Chin Up! is an ode to perseverance. Emma tries to make peace at the end of her life, and the stage upon which the action is played out is not removed from the quotidian but an intrinsic part of it. By the time Emma is seen isolated in her white, germless hospital room, she looks like a bald monk in a monastic cell, finally cleansed of worldly conflict. It doesn't feel like a gratuitous nirvana has been thrust upon her, but rather that she has achieved some level of peace that is in keeping with who she is: not saintly, but dignified and good.

Chin Up! doesn't cram anything down your throat. Unlike, say, Terms of Endearment, you don't get the sense that there's a plan being hatched to suck every last tear from your skull. There's even a kind of natural, nervous humour that emerges from Emma's dynamic with her boyfriend (Laurent Lucas). About to undergo radiation, the nurse fits Emma into a protective hood and Simon can't help but giggle at how cute and silly it makes her look. It's a dark moment, but it's also a deeply human one. :

Chin Up! (French with English subtitles) opens Friday, Jan. 14 at Ex-Centris. See repertory listings for showtimes