An off the wall, truly bonkers piece of cinema, A Little Bit of Heaven has to be seen to be believed. The film tells the story of Marley (Kate Hudson), a “free spirited” woman whose life of casual hookups and batshit insane advertising pitches is derailed by a sudden ass cancer diagnosis. While pursuing treatment, she disturbingly falls for her doctor Julian (Guy Garcia Bernal), and with the help of her family and friends, reevaluates what makes life worth living.

I think you’d agree that, based on that summary, A Little Bit of Heaven doesn’t do itself any favors. It has to successfully swing between drama, comedy and romance. Juggling all this would be a tall order for any film, and A Little Bit of Heaven pretty much completely flubs it. The movie struggles mightily with a story that includes everything from meet-cute convos to ass-rattling colonoscopies.

A Little Bit of Heaven is probably at its best when it is trying to be serious. The subplot focusing on Marley’s estranged parents (played by Treat Williams and a slumming-it Kathy Bates) is particularly affecting. Their pained attempts to navigate reconciliation while having a critically ill child result in some of A Little Bit of Heaven’s most moving scenes. It also gives these two pros a chance to shine. Bates, characteristically, is totally believable as a mother burdened by regret and gripped by fear. Not to be outdone is Williams, who turns in a performance of an emotionally constipated boomer that may hit a bit too close to home for some viewers.

Not all of A Little Bit of Heaven‘s attempts at gravity pay off. At times, the film strays into the spiritual, with Marley repeatedly hallucinating about meeting God as she undergoes her cancer journey. The film is obviously trying to emulate the type of redemptive magical realism done so well in films like It’s a Wonderful Life. Yet Marley’s convos with the almighty come off as half-cocked, missing the simple internal logic evident in that earlier film. For instance, God is portrayed here by Whoopi Goldberg, who Marley recognizes as being literally Whoopi Goldberg. It is a totally bizarre and distracting choice. Rather than being able to focus on Marley’s spiritual journey in these scenes, all you can think about is how Whoopi exists within the universe of the film and whether Marley has seen Rat Race.

Whenever A Little Bit of Heaven tries to lighten things up, though, it becomes far worse. Many of its comedy scenes come off flatter than the dozens of half-drunk Nixies scattered around my house. Probably the most striking example of this is when one of Marley’s friends hires a sex worker for her who is played by Peter Dinklage. The two characters wind up hitting it off (in a non-amorous way) and turn the tables on the friend by pretending to have wall-shattering, bone-crunching sex. The filmmakers obviously thought they were mining comedic gold, but it just comes off as impossibly lame.

Even if A Little Bit of Heaven knocked its dramatic and comedic aspects out of the park, the romantic relationship between Marley and Julian would still tank the film. The movie devotes an inordinate amount of time to it and clearly wants us to root for them as a couple. There is one small problem, however. The dynamic is completely creepy and inappropriate. My stomach churned at the idea of a doctor banging his deeply ill cancer patient. I kept waiting for someone to haul his ass in front of the state’s medical board or, at the very least, his hospital’s ethics committee.

The two leads fail to make this unsavory pairing more palatable with their star power. Guy Garcia Bernal is usually a wellspring of charisma, but he’s utterly lost here, turning in a confused performance devoid of charm. His work does nothing to endear us to Julian, who comes off as a skeevy little perv who shouldn’t be trusted to change a tire much less put a colonoscope between someone’s ham hocks.

Hudson is equally bad, narcissistically overacting almost every scene. Her Marley reads as deranged, with the character reduced to a series of lascivious jokes and jeering grins rather than being a well-rounded individual. The actress also clearly stipulated in her contract that her hair and makeup look completely perfect at all times, despite playing someone with stage IV cancer. Such egotistical choices make it pretty hard to care about Marley’s plight and overall journey, as they make her feel unsympathetic and unbelievable.

A Little Bit of Heaven is advertised on streaming as being largely a straight romantic comedy. And as this review has hopefully made clear, my ducklings, I truly wish it was. Because the reality is A Little Bit of Heaven is a complex hodgepodge of tones and is ill-equipped to handle almost all of them. As mentioned, it is technically possible to pull off an ambitious story that enchants with romance and comedy while also exploring real existential dramas. But let’s be clear, it’s not easy.

But once and awhile a movie like 50/50 emerges and is largely able to do it. Such an accomplishment was only possible though because that film took the uglier parts of its story seriously and pulled off humor that was actually funny. It also had stars operating at the peak of their powers, which helped the film overcome the problems laced throughout its own romantic plot. A Little Bit of Heaven lacks all of this. And in the end, that dooms the film’s reach to firmly escape its grasp.