Film Stars Don't Die in Liverpool (2017)

This biopic makes very cursory work of the early stages of the relationship between 40s Hollywood starlet Gloria Grahame, apparently once an actual person, and her much younger Liverpoolian lover Peter Turner, then wants viewers to invest themselves in that relationship's protracted death throes as Grahame, sick with breast cancer, returns to Liverpool an ailing Norma Desmond type - but quite sympathetic - seeking to convalesce in a room upstairs in Peter's family's home.

★★☆☆☆

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Truman (2015)

A man, a stage actor dying of cancer, is visited in Madrid by his dear friend now living in Canada and their four days together are spent doing spontaneous but rather morbid things as both friends face the prospect of never seeing the other again, and if you think that sounds maudlin, it isn't - while certainly not without its emotional moments, this Spanish movie is a gentle, refreshing tonic.

★★★★☆

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About Her Brother (おとうと) (2010)

A sister and the estranged brother she considers a wastrel are reunited when he turns up and makes a nuisance of himself during his niece's wedding, in Yamada Youji's simple but oh so emotional family drama from 2010, guaranteed to make even the most stoic of viewers bawl their eyes out.

★★★★☆

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