An extraordinary look at the lives of a middle-aged couple in the midst of the wife's breast cancer diagnosis.
Joan and Tom have been married for many years. There is an ease to their relationship which comes from spending a lifetime together, a depth of love which expresses itself through tenderness and humour. When Joan is diagnosed with breast cancer, the course of her treatment shines a light on their relationship; they are faced with the challenges of what might happen. 'Ordinary Love' is a story about love, survival, and epic questions about life.
Just as its title suggests, 'Ordinary Love' tells a normal, not-at-all romanticized and thus much more realistic story about a middle-aged married couple, Tom (Liam Neeson) and Joan (Lesley Manville), who has already experienced the tragedy of losing their only child and "learned" how to live with it, now exposed to a new ordeal, the wife being diagnosed with breast cancer. After a favorable surgery, and doctor's opinion that the cancer was completely removed, nevertheless and despite the husband's protest, who in need for additional therapy sees contradiction with the success attributed to surgery, chemotherapy is still necessary to eliminate individual malignant cells, possibly spread throughout the body, which could cause relapse of the illness. The film has an open ending, but there is no reason for pessimism: the surgery was successful, the recommended chemotherapy, though truly almost never without extraordinary efforts for the patient, was carried out effectively. Thus, the positive expectations for the continuation of a quality life are well founded.—Davor Blazevic 1959 <[email protected]>