Starring Drew Barrymore. Rated PG.

Usually, diseases are injected into domestic dramedies to deepen, or sometimes break, ties between characters and audience. But in Miss You Already—a pet phrase between two lifelong pals—we’re rushed through their bona fides in order to give cancer top billing.

This is a rather daring strategy, and one that plays against the otherwise commercial instincts of director Catherine Hardwicke, who made the teen-angst indie 13 before blowing up with Twilight. The script, from veteran Brit-TV actor and writer Morwenna Banks, is short on profound explorations of feelings and events. Hell, she barely sketches in why long-time Londoners Jess and Milly—played as adults by Drew Barrymore and Toni Collette, respectively—even like each other, apart from their shared love of Wuthering Heights. But when the latter gets a surprise diagnosis, the movie is all business about what happens afterward, sparing us few details of the painful indignities Milly must face.

These include telling Jess before breaking the horrible news to her devoted, if slightly blocked, husband (Dominic Cooper) and their adorably bratty children (Honor Kneafsey and Ryan Lennon Baker). Jess has fertility and money issues with her construction-worker husband (Paddy Considine)—although they are able to live in a nifty houseboat on the Thames—but these are swept aside by her sick friend’s ever-expanding needs. Ever the wild one, Milly is still rebelling against her faded movie-star mother (a plum role for Jacqueline Bisset), and acts out in shocking ways as her condition worsens. This is where the movie steps away from the usual sick-loved-one bromides.

It would work even better if Hardwicke didn’t rely so much on hand-held close-ups and moody alt-rock songs for expected effects, and the strain to find uplift at the end is apparent. But Miss You Already has the courage to at least suggest frequently hidden realms of friendship and fear.