McCafferty shows this in even the briefest of encounters, as with a fellow patient who gives Joan some advice on chemo.
Peter and Joan speak with the kind of directness that only comes when time is limited and choices are even more limited. Joan and Tom are completely comfortable with their companionable but indirect form of communication. McCafferty understands the instant straight-to-the-point intimacy of fellow patients and the comfort that they get from being able to be frank with each other. He was a teacher who once had Joan's daughter Debbie in his class. It is Peter ( David Wilmot), another cancer patient. Joan spots a familiar face in the hospital waiting room. As they move forward, even the "good" results are not very good, and the treatments are brutal. But there must be tests, just to make sure. Her last mammogram, eight months earlier, was clear, so the doctor's initial response is reassuring. In the shower, Joan feels a lump in her breast. Uneasy and asunder is what Tom and Joan are about to be. In the poem's terms, they are "ever uneasy asunder." Her name may be a reference to Darby and Joan, a popular British term from an 18th century poem that has come to mean any unassuming ("ordinary"), long-time married couple who are deeply devoted. Tom (Neeson) and Joan (Manville) have an amiable, affectionate relationship with a lot of gentle teasing that may sound like bickering but is really their form of banter, clearly honed over decades together. This first screenplay by Irish playwright Owen McCafferty is inspired by his own wife's experience with breast cancer, and the smallest details are thoughtfully observed and portrayed with sympathetic honesty. Random encounters with other patients somehow become vitally important. Health care professionals are sympathetic but removed. "Ordinary Love" stars Liam Neeson and the exquisite Lesley Manville in the story of a couple who are navigating the world of serious illness, the euphemisms and delays, from initial tests that are "concerning" to the diagnosis: "the results weren't what we hoped." Then there is surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy.
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