The movie opens with Kate (Hillary Swank), a classically trained pianist. One night while she's playing Chopin's Polonaise, she finds it hard to keep her fingers moving correctly. When she tune is over, she sees her pinky and thumb slightly twitching. 18 months later, it turns out that Kate has ALS. Bec's (Emmy Rossum) life is a bit of a mess. She's a struggling singer/songwriter, hooks up with random guys for sex, oversleeps, and is not the most reliable of people. She auditions to be Kate's caregiver. Against Kate's husband's - Evan - (Josh Duhamel) objections, Bec is given the job, which proves to be...interesting at first. The two women begin to bond into a real friendship, especially after Kate's marriage falls apart.
The movie was very well done. The acting was superb, especially Swank, who performed a variety of symptoms associated with ALS, from the twitching of the fingers, to the dragging of the legs, to the slurred, incoherent speech, and the coughing attacks. Rossum plays a character very similar to her Fiona character from Shameless - a stranger to wealth, class and refinement. All the same, she has a heart of
gold
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