This film is exactly like "Life as a House" and just as cliche riddled but I do have to say that Albert Brooks and Leelee Sobieski really do have good chemistry and the scenes of them together are nicely played out. Sobieski has that fresh young quality that is appealing and of course Brooks has always been terrific. But then all of the sudden they drop the bomb on the audience....He's dying! I guess we are all suppose to go "AAWWWW"!!!!! Well I don't fall that easily for sympathetic plot devices. What a contrived angle to the story. I think they were on the right path with two lonely (But different) people meeting and striking up a friendship but then this film completely drowns in its predictable contrivances.