You're not exactly expecting a joyfest when you learn that a malignant tumour has spread out of control inside 23-year-old Ann (Polley).

There's her two little daughters - aged six and four - to think about. There's also her kind if feckless husband to grieve for.

And then there's the bitter regrets of a life unfulfilled; Ann has only known life as a contract cleaner and lives in a caravan in her world-hating mom's garden.

Hollywood would undoubtably make a cloying hash of the subject so we have Coixet to thank for a story that soars when it could sink.

Shot through with both bitter irony and a full-blooded optimism, it only occasionally threatens to become mawkish but is soon back on track.

Upon hearing the news that she got three months at most to live, Ann sits down in a café and jots down the things she wants to do before she dies.

As well as the expected messages of love to her family, she also decides to embark on an affair with a stranger (she married the first boy she kissed).

The man who fits the bill (and ends up falling in love with her) is Lee (Ruffalo), who happens to be sitting a few tables away.

What lifts this above the normally grim terminal illness fare such as Autumn in November, is the rich gallery of characters that surround Ann.

Her mum (Harry) complains her hips are hurting after she had to bake a cake in the shape of a tyre while braid-fixated hairdresser Maria de Medeiros obsesses about Milli Vanilli.

These bright, real-life characters voicing a wry humour lift the spirits just as often as Ann's predicament is poignantly picked out by an action or gesture.

Prepare to overload the tear ducts when she croons the Beach Boys' God Only Knows off-key to her husband or sits alone in her car recording taped birthday messages to her girls.

However, it's the wry dialogue that enchants: Ann: "Were you watching me while I was asleep?" Lee "Yeah, for a little while." Ann: "I was snoring or¿". Lee: "No, you were drooling. You drool when you sleep."

Tim Evans