You should receive a Congressional Medal of Honor if you can make it through Takahiro Miki's Drawing Closer without crying. From start to finish, this Japanese adaptation of Aoi Morita's "Yomei Ichinen to Senkoku Sareta Boku ga, Yomei Hantoshi no Kimi to Deatta Hanashi" plucks at your heartstrings like Eddie Van Halen playing "Spanish Fly" for two hours straight. It's in the same class as The Fault in Our Stars, Five Feet Apart, and other YA romances about illnesses, chronic or otherwise. The film has one mode, and it's never coy about its intentions to pry tears from your ducts as often as possible. If you're in the mood for a Shakespearean J-drama about mortality, stock up on hankies and let 'er rip.

What Is 'Drawing Closer' About?

Drawing Closer is about finding love in a hopeless place. Seventeen-year-old artist Akito Hayasaka (Ren Nagase) dreams of being accepted for the Nika Exhibition but is diagnosed with a rare and fatal heart tumor and an estimated year left to live. Around the same time, he meets Haruna Sakurai (Natsuki Deguchi) on the hospital's rooftop, where the two bond over colored Faber-Castell pencils. Haruna also suffers from a fatal illness, with her prognosis at only months left on her earthly clock. Together, as their teenage romance blossoms, Akito and Haruna fight to spend as many remaining days together as possible — because death could be around any corner.

Admittedly, Drawing Closer is an effective tearjerker that lays dramatic weights on like we're going emotional powerlifting. The setup alone is enough to send some people spiraling, as two borderline children are told they're never going to grow up thanks to rare medical conditions. Then, they fall in love! Whether or not you find the film heartfelt or manipulative, if you have a soul, you'll fall victim to Miki's by-the-books sobfest. Akito and Haruna are empowered by their diagnoses, acting all saccharinely sweet with Wonka-level headrushes of empathetic scenes.

The film isn't incredibly complicated but finds cute ways for Akito and Haruna to convey what are initially hidden emotions. Akito's neighborhood florist tells him about all the hidden meanings of gerbera flowers, from what colors represent to how the count in a bouquet translates. It becomes a secret code, and we wonder if Haruna understands — like how she's working on secret illustrations Akito isn't allowed to examine. Neither dying person wants to burden the other, but the story's themes strip away such a mindset. Both Akito and Haruna deserve love, even just for a fraction of the average human lifespan, and their passionate union inspires hope that anyone can find that special someone. Affirmation and compassion ring loudly in Miki's narrative vocabulary, and while he urges his actors to oversell their enthusiasm, Nagase and Deguchi find organic adoration through smiley and devoted performances.

'Drawing Closer' Is Purposely Hokey and Corny

Every scene is unquestionably characteristic of effervescent J-dramas. Cinematographer Hiroo Yanagida washes outdoor scenes with a white-out brightness, as if we're squinting into the sun, while attitudes are alarmingly plucky and squee-teen throughout. Composer Seiji Kameda lays down upbeat acoustic guitar melodies, playing a private show for Akito and Haruna offscreen. It's hokey and corny with intention, leaning into an almost heroic pursuit of happiness that means to feel larger than reality. You're watching Drawing Closer for the same reason audiences torture themselves with Nicholas Sparks adaptations on the regular. We all yearn to feel something, maybe a reminder that our souls haven't been entirely shattered by [gestures around], and Miki provides that agreeably masochistic escape.

Frustratingly, Drawing Closer is a marathon—two relentless hours of being jabbed in the feels by an unfair tragedy. There's never a reprieve from overwhelming avalanches of existential sadness. Drawing Closer meets Netflix's algorithmic standards of originals clocking at or around two hours at a cost to watchability. Subtlety is not Miki's forte, nor does his adaptation feature intricate storytelling that zigs and zags long enough to keep our attention sharp throughout the entire duration. We know where Drawing Closer is headed from the beginning, and Miki isn't shy about pandering to every trope in the "Depressingly Hopeful Rom-Dram-Com" playbook.

Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so if you can wipe yours clean long enough to watch Drawing Closer and love torturing yourself with romantic "downers" as a treat, this is probably a winner. Miki succeeds in following guidelines to please its weepy audience demographic. Themes land with an egregious heavy-handedness because that's what the doctor ordered, and Miki's behind-the-camera motivations are transparent. Drawing Closer is no better or worse than spotlight Hallmark or Lifetime specials, stuck right in the middle, takin' care of business (making tweens and homemakers bawl their eyes red).

Drawing Closer is now available to stream on Netflix in the U.S.