Life in a Year

Seventeen-year-old Daryn learns that Isabelle, whom he has just met, has terminal cancer, and sets about compressing a whole life into the year she has left. Overbrook Entertainment produced, with Will Smith and Jada Pinkett Smith as executive producers. Mitja Okorn directed from a script by Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews. Jaden Smith plays Daryn and Cara Delevingne plays Isabelle, with Cuba Gooding Jr., Nia Long, RZA and Chris D'Elia in support. Shooting began in Toronto in April 2017, and then the film sat. There was a long gap between production and distribution, and it finally arrived on Amazon Prime Video on 27 November 2020, released by Sony Pictures Releasing. The numbers tell the outcome: a 10 million dollar budget against a box office of 43,862 dollars. Who it is for: viewers who knowingly seek out the terminal illness romance. Who it is not for: anyone wanting originality. The film works through every stage of the genre in order, and the three-year delay says how that landed.