Tessa Scott, Dakota Fanning is seventeen and living with terminal acute lymphoblastic leukemia. With the loyal help of her best friend, Zoey Walker, Kaya Scodelario, and a new neighbor, Adam, Jeremy Irvine, she begins to tick off a bucket list she hopes to complete before her time runs out. Together, they push boundaries and chase moments of joy, even as the weight of her illness never fully leaves the frame. Early on, the trio dares to test fate by attempting to connect with two boys they meet at a club, a reckless echo of their longing to feel alive in the shadow of Tessa’s prognosis.
On a radio talk show, Tessa confronts the reality of her condition with humor, while her overbearing father, Paddy Considine, watches from the edges as she treats her diagnosis with wit and grace. Her caring, complicated relationship with her brother, Cal Scott, Edgar Canham, shines through as she tries to give him days that feel like they’re about him. Her mother, Shirley?—Olivia Williams—is supportive, yet distant at times, leaving Tessa to navigate her choices and emotions with a fierce, almost defiant tenderness. When she decides to remove the last of her chemotherapy equipment so she can live the remainder of her days more normally, a quiet rebellion against fear and a longing for ordinary moments takes center stage.
A magnetic bond forms with Adam, who is caring for his handicapped widowed mother and postponing his own life, including university plans. He and Tessa quickly become each other’s stay-on-ground—their alliance deepening as they share adventures, including hallucinogenic mushroom trips that lead them to forest cliffs and a later party where feelings bloom in the open air. As Tessa and Zoey continue to push the bucket list, a shocking revelation surfaces when Zoey steals a pregnancy test, hinting at a future that makes the present feel even more urgent and fragile.
The romance between Tessa and Adam grows as they explore a real connection, intensified by the conflict with Tessa’s father, who worries that her health cannot withstand more risk. He questions whether Adam is truly prepared for what lies ahead, even as he gradually accepts the depth of their bond. Zoey’s pregnancy becomes a significant turn: she confirms she’s keeping the baby, due in April, a detail that threads through Tessa’s final months. Tessa brings Zoey to a clinic to confirm the pregnancy, and the news reshapes the group’s sense of time and responsibility.
As Tessa’s health declines, her immune system collapses, and a doctor—Dr. Ryan Julian Wadham—delivers the sobering news that her life will end soon. The realization forces Tessa to seek solace with Adam, only to learn he has entered university orientation and may not be there when she needs him most. A furious, heartbreaking meltdown follows, and the truth about the bucket list on her wall is revealed to her father, who breaks down in tears at the sight of what she has built—an expression of her love and longing to be seen. In a moment of catharsis, she and her father connect, and she receives his renewed presence as a gift rather than a burden.
Tessa flees to the seaside cliffs, where Adam finds her, and they share a profound, bittersweet moment. She gives him her blessing to fall in love again at university after she’s gone, acknowledging the limited time they have left but insisting that love and life are worth pursuing. Her health deteriorates rapidly; a nurse warns that she will die within days. In the days that follow, Tessa drifts between wakefulness and dreams of a healthier life, surrounded by her father, mother, brother, and Adam. A series of daydreams envisions joyful futures—a life with Adam, a family with Zoey’s baby, and the warmth of a world where she exists in memory as clearly as she does in presence.
The final hours are intimate and quiet, punctuated by goodbyes and a last, luminous vision of a future that could have been. In one last, hopeful moment, a healthy Tessa imagines holding Zoey’s newborn girl, a powerful reminder that life, even at its end, is a collection of moments that gather toward this one: the moment of saying goodbye, and the moment of choosing to let go, so that life’s memories—and the people we love—can endure. > life is a series of moments. Let them go. Moments all gathering toward this one.
