Boy meets girl; if boy coughs on girl, she dies, and vice versa. If nothing else, that's a teen romance we haven't seen before. Stella (Haley Lu Richardson), a lovely bright teen, 16 or 17, is back in hospital somewhere in the US for the umpteenth time. She is determined not to be victimised by her cystic fibrosis - an incurable disease that makes her especially vulnerable to respiratory infection.
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Enter the new boy, devastatingly cute Will (Cole Sprouse), who doesn't take his medications on time, neglects his exercises, and sits on the hospital roof at night in the cold. Heart-of-gold nurse Barb (Kimberly Hebert Gregory) insists they stay six feet apart at all times, in case one should give the other a fatal microbe. We're dying anyway, says Will, so what's the point?
It's the best tear-jerker in a long time; one box of tissues might not be enough. The idea is to keep the audience on the hook with the denial of touch. People living with CF may be divided, but the movie will register the disease in the minds of youth.
