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A young New Yorker (Christopher Abbott) struggles to take control of his self-destructive, hedonistic behavior as his mother (Cynthia Nixon) battles cancer. As the pressure on him mounts, James must find new reserves of strength or risk imploding completely.
It's not easy viewing by any means. But it is strangely refreshing for a movie to show us that terminal illness involves agony and vomit and terror, despite what Beaches might have told us.
One will never wish to go through precisely what White does, but losing one's parents is inevitable, and the film is a searingly authentic portrait of the process.
Abbott contributes a smart, soulful performance, but Nixon keeps threatening to walk away with the movie as the mother, who can't get enough of life and whose physical decay is colored by rage, defiance, and terror.
"James White" gets up close and personal in often discomfiting ways, but it's never exploitative or glib. It hits the highs, and the rock bottoms, and all the damnable stuff in between.