The caption for Rob Reiner’s (of When Harry Met Sally) new film The Bucket List is ‘Find the Joy’. Unfortunately there is very little joy to be found in this film, and unless you are a middle- aged man with similar mortality issues it is rather unlikely that you will find anything in it at all.The story is simple: Carter Richards (Morgan Freeman), an auto mechanic, and Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), a corporate billionaire, share a room in a hospital where they are being treated for cancer. The doctors give both of them no more than a year to live. Predictably enough, Mr. Nice and Mr. Snob become friends and decide to live out their dreams before they ‘kick the bucket.’ Together they compose a list of things to do, like skydiving, getting a tattoo, and kissing beautiful women. Clearly the makers of the film were very concerned with showing the process of how both men eventually overcome the delusions they had about themselves and their lives and realise what really matters.This sounds more promising than it is. From the very first scene predictability guides the story. Imagine all the clichés and platitudes about love, friendship, family and religion thrown into one bucket and you will understand the tone of the picaresque voyage the two dying men embark on. The screenplay is mediocre, the level of conversation is sentimental bordering on trivial, and the supporting cast is embarrassingly weak. The only truly impressive feature is how Freeman and Nicholson still manage to convey emotions through even the most simplistic lines, yet the acting genius of the film’s two stars seems wasted in this one-dimensional film.So if you are in fact looking to ‘find the joy’ this week, you’ll have to look some place other than this dreary tale about two old men confronting death. By Marina Zarubin
