Sweet? Yes, but ‘Gift’ Has More to Offer

By all rights, “Gift of Love: The Daniel Huffman Story” should be oozing with saccharine.

In a nutshell, this Showtime drama is the real-life tale of a young football player who gave up his kidney to save the life of his beloved grandmother.

Pure treacle, right?

Wrong!

In the capable hands of writer Anna Sandor (“Miss Rose White”) and director John Korty (“The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman”), this small, heartfelt story unfolds quite nicely, thanks in large part to a natural and amiable performance by Elden Henson, who plays Daniel, and the engaging, effortless work of Debbie Reynolds, ever the pro as his ailing Gran Allison.

One other strength of the film is the casting of average-looking teens as Daniel’s circle of friends, as opposed to the knockouts on teen-oriented frosh fare such as “Roswell” or “Popular.”

On the downside, parts of the film play like scenes from a standard-issue “Afterschool Special,” and Ed Marinaro is saddled with spouting a string of cliches (“And the rest, as they say, is history” and “You win some, you lose some” are two examples) in his role as the team’s hard-nosed but even-handed coach.

Nonetheless, there are solid performances all around and ultimately, Daniel makes his point to one and all that life boils down to choices, his of course being to spend more quality years with his favorite person, even if it meant never playing football again.

In anyone’s playbook, that’s a good thing.

* “Gift of Love: The Daniel Huffman Story” will be shown Sunday at 8 p.m. on Showtime. The cable network has rated it TV-PG (may be unsuitable for young children).