‘Go Now’s’ Love Story Rejects Formula

To make a movie about a couple whose love for each other is tested by the sudden onset of a crippling illness is to risk being lumped in with the most glib and manipulative of all dramatic genres, the “disease-of-the-week” TV movie. But Michael Winterbottom, who takes that plunge with “Go Now,” is anything but a glib filmmaker.

The British director has made a splash stateside with his last two films, “Jude,” a tough, unsentimental adaptation of Thomas Hardy’s “Jude the Obscure,” and “Welcome to Sarajevo,” his superb docudrama about a television reporter’s experiences covering the war in Bosnia.

“Go Now” was made in 1995, before those films, and is being released in the U.S. now because of them. Better late than never.

“Go Now” stars the terrific Robert Carlyle, the leader of the bump-and-grind boys in “The Full Monty,” as Nick, a young Scottish plasterer whose rough-and-tumble bachelor life in Bristol, England, has just taken on the smooth edges of romance with Karen (Juliet Aubrey), a woman he’d met in a pub on a night out with his weekend soccer mates.

Nick and Karen are living together, in as much harmony as newly-lovers can expect, when Nick’s body begins to undermine him. He’s missing plays on the soccer field, earning the wrath of the coach. He’s dropping tools on the job, nearly braining his best friend Tony (James Nesbitt). He’s seeing double, losing bladder control, becoming temperamental. He has, doctors will soon tell him, multiple sclerosis.

We’re a good way into the movie when we get to this revelation, which is where the “disease-of-the-week” formula usually kicks in, with data-heavy speeches from the doctor about the nature of the illness, its frequency in the population and the prognosis for the hero. But when it gets to that point here, Winterbottom stays put, and sticks with his love story.

With a sharply written script by Jimmy McGovern (“Priest”) and Paul Henry Powell, who based his original story on his own experiences with MS, “Go Now” is far less interested in exploring the effects of the disease on Nick than on the bond between him and Karen. How strong is their relationship at this early stage? Do they know each other well enough to adjust?

“Go Now” is a slice of life, not death, and it has all the variables of living--humor and melancholy, joy and anger, pleasure and pain. Nick and Karen are real people, confused by this catastrophic development, uncertain about themselves, and put off balance with each other. Nick is pushing her away, and she’s tempted, by her relationship with her boss and former lover, to leave. But the bond won’t break easily.

Carlyle and Aubrey make Nick and Karen enormously sympathetic, even as their behavior takes some wrong turns. We follow their relationship as we would a threatened marriage among our own friends. We like them both, and want them to be together, but we’re as stumped for answers as they are.

It’s a remarkable thing for a filmmaker to make that emotional connection between his characters and his audience, and more evidence that Winterbottom is one of the bright new talents in international film.

* Unrated. Times guidelines: for mature audiences. There’s strong profanity and frank depiction of sexuality.

‘Go Now’

Robert Carlyle: Nick

Juliet Aubrey: Karen

James Nesbitt: Tony

Sophie Okonedo: Paula

A Revolution Films production, released by Gramercy Pictures. Director Michael Winterbottom. Producer Andrew Eaton. Screenplay Paul Henry Powell and Jimmy McGovern. Cinematography Daf Hobson. Editor Trevor Waite. Production designer Hayden Pearce. Art director Frazer Pearce. Costumes Rachael Fleming. Running time: 1 hour, 28 minutes.

* Exclusively at the Samuel Goldwyn Pavilion Cinemas, Westside Pavilion, 10800 W. Pico Blvd., West Los Angeles, (310) 475-0202.