When fashion model Christine Handy was diagnosed with breast cancer at 41, she turned to movies for answers. What she found on screen instead were glossy fantasies that didn’t properly depict her reality. “What I found was troubling and fear-based,” Handy said during the “Hello Beautiful” Variety Screening Series on Nov. 13. “I found really beautiful Hollywood movies that have won great accolades, but they start with a diagnosis, sugarcoat the process and end in a funeral. And I was more afraid. I thought, that’s not fair. People going through this deserve better.” Handy channeled that frustration into action by writing the novel “Walk Beside Me,” which documented the isolating experience of losing her breasts, her hair, and the model-perfect identity she’d built her career on. Her book became the foundation of Ziad Hamzeh’s indie drama “Hello Beautiful,” which Handy hopes will fill a “vacancy” in authentic cancer dramas. It’s a story that also arrives at a critical moment when breast cancer rates are rising fastest among women ages 19 to 39, a demographic she says often feels “too young” and completely unprepared for the diagnosis. While Hamzeh had seen iconic cancer dramas like “Steel Magnolia” and “Terms of Endearment,” he said he deliberately avoided imitating them by leaning into the authenticity of Handy’s story. “We wanted to show that when a woman the mother, the keeper of the home is struck by breast cancer, everything starts falling apart,” Hamzeh explained. “The relationship, the confidence, the children. Cancer doesn’t come knocking on your door when you’re fine and dandy.
https://variety.com/2025/artisans/variety-events/hello-beautiful-rewrite-hollywood-cancer-stories-1236584917/
How ‘Hello Beautiful’ Aims to Rewrite Hollywood’s Cancer Stories
