The Bucket List (2007)

Complete strangers meet in a hospital and, with only months to live, decide to see the world.

The Plot: (Spoilers)

Auto mechanic Carter (Morgan Freeman), a trivia buff, gets a call at work with bad news.

Carter was having a good day until he got some bad news

Edward Cole (Jack Nicholson), at a county commissioners meeting where he is trying to privatize a struggling local hospital under his company, starts coughing up blood.

Edward didn't see that coming

Carter & Edward end up sharing a room at one of the hospitals Edward runs, due to his policy of “two beds to a room, no exceptions.” Turns out that he never had a problem with that, as he’d never been sick before, but his assistant Tom (Sean Hayes) says it would cause a big PR problem for him to make an exception for himself.

Edward & Carter sharing a room

Edward has cancer, and after an operation, doctors give Edward only a 5% chance of survival. Over the next few weeks, they get to know each other and become friends. Carter has been in and out of the hospital for months, undergoing an experimental treatment. He has a wife named Virginia (Beverly Todd) and three grown children (one of which is played by Morgan Freeman’s real-life son Alfonso Freeman). He always wanted to be a history professor but dropped out of college when Virginia became pregnant, and he never had the chance to go back, even though he always wanted to. Edward has been married and divorced four times, and says he was never married long enough to have any kids. One night, Carter starts making a “bucket list” that he won’t show Edward. Edward’s doctor comes in to deliver his test results, which aren’t good: Edward has 6 months to a year to live. Edward asks the doctor to find out Carter’s status, as Carter’s doctor is hard to get a hold of. Carter finds out that he too only has about a year left. He crumples up his list and throws it on the floor.

New friends

The next morning, Edward finds the list and asks what it is. Carter explains that his old philosophy teacher once assigned them to make a list of things they wanted to do before they “kicked the bucket” and he was re-doing the list for himself. Edward likes the idea and adds things like “go skydiving,” “get a tattoo” and “kiss the most beautiful girl in the world” to Carter’s existing list of “witness something truly breathtaking,” “help a complete stranger for the good,” “laugh till I cry” and “drive a Shelby Mustang.” Edward convinces Carter into fulfilling the list together, as they are both asymptomatic. Carter’s wife doesn’t understand and blames Edward for taking her husband away.

It's been decided

They start with the skydiving, which terrifies Carter but Edward enjoys it. Edward’s assistant Tom is tagging along to arrange everything, whose name is actually Matthew, but Edward prefers to call him “Tom.” They go on to driving muscle cars on a racetrack; Carter gets to drive a Shelby GT350 Mustang while Edward drives a Dodge Challenger R/T. Carter gets a little wild in his driving, intentionally bumping Edward’s car and challenging him over a small jump. They go to a tattoo parlor and Edward gets an elaborate tattoo of himself but Carter refuses, saying he doesn’t see anything he wants to be stuck with.

Cool cars

They fly to France to dine on caviar in a waterfront restaurant. Edward admits to Carter that he has a daughter named Emily that he doesn’t see anymore. Carter tries to add “get back in touch” to the list, but Edward refuses. Carter suddenly rushes off to the bathroom and Edward thinks that he upset him, but it turns out the catheter in Carter’s chest came loose and he started bleeding, but he was able to stop it. Back at Edward’s French villa, while Carter takes a bath, Edward gets a call from Virginia, who asks him to bring her husband back. Edward suggests to Carter that, because of the catheter incident, maybe they should postpone the rest of the trip, but Carter realizes that his wife called.

They continue on an African safari and visit the pyramids in Egypt. On top of one of the pyramids, Edward tells Carter why he doesn’t see his daughter anymore. When she was about to get married, there was something about her fiancé that led Edward to oppose the marriage. Naturally, he wasn’t invited to the wedding. The husband turned out be abusive, and the first time he hit Emily, she came to Edward, but said that it wasn’t her husband’s fault as he’d been drinking and she started the fight, but she still loved him. The next time, Edward heard about it from his ex-wife, and he hired someone to “take care of it.”All he knows is that the husband wasn’t killed and Emily never saw him again. When Emily found out what Edward did, she declared that he was dead to her.

The big gun has a lot of kick

Visiting the Taj Mahal in India, Edward and Carter discuss death. Edward doesn’t know what to have done with his remains. Carter wants to be cremated and have his ashes put in a Chock full o’Nuts coffee can and buried somewhere with a view.

They ride the Great Wall of China on a motorcycle and then try to climb Mount Everest to fulfill “witness something truly majestic” but they are too late in the season; a storm has already moved in and they won’t be able to climb till the next spring. Edward suggest that maybe it is a sign that it is time for them to go home, but Carter knows he’s just talking about him and refuses.

Is this actually allowed?

They go on to Hong Kong, where they plan to wear silk suits and eat black walnut ice cream. Carter is approached at the bar by a beautiful young woman. They seem to have a lot of common interests, and she invites him up to his room, but he politely declines, saying he is already married. He realizes Edward arranged the encounter and tells him he’s ready to go home. He asks Edward how he knew he’d turn her down, and Edward says he didn’t.

She's too good to be true

Back in America, the driver takes them to the home of Edward’s daughter Emily, which Edward’s assistant had arranged at Carter’s insistence. Edward refuses to try to patch things up with her and leaves with the car leaving Carter and his assistant at the side of the road. Carter takes a cab home to his wife and has a big family dinner, while Edward is left alone in frustration and eventually tears.

This won't end well

After the dinner, Carter collapses and is rushed to the hospital. Edward goes back to work and is eventually notified of Carter’s condition and comes to visit him. The cancer has metastasized to Carter’s brain, and he may not survive. Carter’s wife gives Edward a letter that she was supposed to give him after Carter’s death, but she decided not to wait. While waiting for surgery, Carter and Edward share a laugh about the origin of Edward’s exotic coffee, fulfilling “laugh until I cry.” Carter gives Edward the list and tells him to finish it himself.

At least they can still share a laugh

In his car, Edward reads the note from Carter, which tells him how much the trip helped him and how he reconnected with his wife when he returned and asks Edward to find the joy in his life. Edward goes to successfully reconcile with his daughter Emily, and meets his granddaughter, and leads him to cross off “kiss the most beautiful girl in the world.”

Not as hard as he thought

Edward speaks at Carter’s funeral, and talks about how they traveled the world together and were complete strangers three months earlier. He realizes that he can cross off “help a complete stranger for the good.”

Edward speaks at Carter's funeral

After Edward dies, his assistant climbs to the top of Mount Everest and places a Chock full o-Nuts can containing Edward’s remains, in a concrete monument next to another can with Carter’s remains. He crosses off the remaining item on the list, “witness something truly majestic,” and leaves the list between the two cans.

Final resting place

My review:

This movie is carried by the acting, and Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson are as excellent as ever. Most of the supporting cast isn’t very prominent, but Sean Hayes does a very good job as the long-suffering assistant of Jack Nicholson’s eccentric character, and the two have some amusing banter. Beverly Todd also does a good job as Virginia. The plot works well; most of the moments in the trip are fun to watch, and the ending is a tearjerker. If there is anything I can criticize in this movie, it is that both of the main characters seem to have a lot of energy and little difficulties from their cancer or the treatments from the beginning of their trip until Carter suddenly collapses at home, and they don’t seem to need any significant treatment during their trip. I don’t know much about cancer, but this seems unlikely at best. This didn’t make the movie any less enjoyable to me, however.

The Bucket List is an enjoyable movie with two great actors.