[3] It is based on a novel of the same name by Marti Leimbach, and stars Julia Roberts and Campbell Scott with Vincent D'Onofrio, Colleen Dewhurst, David Selby, and Ellen Burstyn.

[4] The original music score was composed by James Newton Howard,[4] with the main song "Theme from Dying Young" performed by American saxophonist Kenny G. Hilary O'Neil is a beautiful, outgoing yet cautious young woman with little luck in work or love.

One day, Hilary answers an ad in a newspaper for a nurse only to find herself being escorted out before the interview starts.

As his health worsens progressively, and despite his father's protests, Victor hires Hilary to be his live-in caretaker while undergoing a traumatic chemotherapy course.

Hilary and Victor reconnect at the party and he tells her that he is leaving with his father to go back to the hospital in the morning.

On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 25% based on 40 reviews with the following consensus: "Dying's easy; it's making audiences care about the romance at the heart of this inert drama that proves difficult".

[5] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade of "B+" on a scale of A+ to F.[6] Roger Ebert gave the film two out of four stars, and wrote: "Dying Young is a long, slow slog of a movie, up to its knees in drippy self-pity as it marches wearily toward its inevitable ending".