MISS YOU ALREADY is about girlfriends. Life-long girlfriends. True BFFs.

Toni Collette and Drew Barrymore play Milly and Jess, who became quick chums as school girls and shared milestones major and minor ever since.

Now, as adults, adventurous and outrageous Milly has a gorgeous husband, a lovely family, and a high-power position. More grounded and even-tempered Jess has an adoring yet less glamorous hubby, a more earthy career, and struggles endlessly with fertility issues.

Milly and Jess balance one another. Milly encourages spontaneity in Jess; Jess keeps Milly tethered to reality when she most needs it. They love each other unconditionally, support one another without question.

That is, until their devotion to one another is challenged by a breast cancer diagnosis for one and a pregnancy for the other.

 

The friendship — in its finest moments — is exactly what every woman desires in a BFF. Or cherishes if she's fortunate to have such. Which is why MISS YOU ALREADY is a perfect date-night film — to see with a gal pal. And a must-see solo, if necessary.

Collette and Barrymore fabulously model the highs and lows, good times and bad of a forever female friendship. I thoroughly enjoyed MISS YOU ALREADY, and here are some reasons why:

Milly (Collette) can be a real self-centered bitch. And despite her breast cancer, she stays that way. No transformation into a saint of any sort due to the devastation brought on by her diagnosis. If anything, she gets even more self-centered and bitchy as her body betrays her, she loses her looks and faces losing her life. That's real, no cinematic baloney.

Also real are the men. Well, the husbands, anyway. I love Dominic Cooper as Kit, Milly's spouse, and Paddy Considine as Jess's hubby Jago. The storyline provides plenty of places where Kit and Jago, for different reasons, could be stereotypical jerks. They're not, though. Even when I thought they deserved to be... at least a smidgen. There really are real men who do the right thing at the right time. Or at least try to. I was impressed by the lack of stereotypical copouts for the male roles. Kudos to writer Morwenna Banks and director Katherine Hardwicke for such. And to Cooper and Considine for the way they portrayed men who, despite struggling in sucky circumstances, stayed the course in their marriage.

Mostly, I admired Drew Barrymore's Jess. I believe this is my favorite role of hers. She was goofy at times, insecure at times, but more mellow than many of her characters have been and despite the first scene of the film making it seem it just might not be the case, she played the real well, without implausible comedic bursts she's performed in lesser parts.

I loved that the music during one especially poignant scene featured REM's "Losing My Religion" rather than the more obvious, generic choice which would have been the band's "Everybody Hurts." That scene: My favorite of the film. (In part because of the taxi driver. You'll know what I mean when you see it.)

I also loved that Jacqueline Bisset was in MISS YOU ALREADY. As a blond. As Milly's mother, who despite her age was fabulously fashionable and forward. And refreshing. And touching in several scenes.

In researching this and that about MISS YOU ALREADY, I found it interesting that Collette and Barrymore and never previously met. They talk about that in this Today Show interview aired when the dramatic comedy first premiered in theaters last year:

MISS YOU ALREADY (rated PG-13 for "thematic content, sexual material, and some language") opened in theaters last fall and is now available on DVD and some streaming services.