"What would you do if you had one week to live?"

Those words appeared in the previews for One Week, and they intrigued me. However, I was afraid the film’s protagonist would be afflicted with some rare fictitious disease that would enable him to party like a frat boy for a week before quickly succumbing. But the previews were misleading: writer-director Michael McGowan’s One Week is a more serious film than that, though one told with more than a smattering of humor.

Ben Tyler (Joshua Jackson) is a young schoolteacher who is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Although chemotherapy will prolong Ben’s life by perhaps two years, even with treatment, this type of aggressive cancer is fatal 90% of the time. Realizing that the treatment will make him very sick -- in the short term, even sicker than the cancer will -- Ben decides to postpone the start of his chemotherapy for a week. He buys a used Norton 850 Commando motorcycle and, over the protests of his fiancée, heads west across Canada in a bid to do some serious living and soul-searching before beginning his probably futile battle with his disease.

One Week is a very Canadian film. All roles are filled by Canadian actors who likely won’t be recognized south of the 49th parallel. The tone is understated, with less action and melodrama than is usual in Hollywood fare, and the lack of a Jack Kerouac character or a Route 66 is refreshing. The interest here is in the nuance and the subtlety.

Joshua Jackson, who has Canadian roots himself, is excellent as the quiet, introverted Ben. What Ben experiences on his journey -- hardly an "adventure," unless you’ve lived as quiet a life as Ben has -- is more a series of minor events that take on considerable significance in the mind of someone starved for change and meaning, and Ben ultimately doesn’t find the adventure he’s searching for. Having settled for most things in his life, it seems that now he must settle for a mediocre final adventure.

One Week was intelligently scripted by director Michael McGowan. In some respects, it reminded me of Sean Penn’s film Into the Wild, about the true-life adventures of Christopher McCandless, who left behind his stifling middleclass life to explore the open road. Both are about someone who seeks answers by hitting the open road and hoping that the characters he meets will provide some illumination. However, One Week is far more humorous a film, and Ben Tyler is much more sympathetic a character than McCandless. Here, we hope Ben finds the answers he’s looking for.

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