It's debatable whether William Hurt was good casting for the central role of this film about a doctor who gets cancer.

It gets so you care little more about his character at the end than you did at the start - indeed, he doesn't seem to have changed that much.

Supposedly a meeting with a dying cancer patient (Elizabeth Perkins) softens his outlook on life, turning him into more of a human being who cares about his fellow men.

But on Hurt, it doesn't show.

However, although she doesn't have a particularly good, or consistent role, Christine Lahti enriches the film with sincerity and warmth as Hurt's wife.

Otherwise, the pace is slow and the heart only occasionally uplifted.

Those who dislike seeing surgery on screen are given plenty of opportunity to look the other way.