Living Every Second: The Kris Hallenga Story review – an amazing story of hope

A A diagnosis of terminal cancer is not usually something that makes someone hopeful. TV portrayals, fictional and otherwise, tend to portray the disease as tragic and catastrophic (which of course can be the case), with the patient relegated to bed to ‘fight’ the disease from the start. But Kris Hallenga – the focus of the BBC documentary Living Every Second: The Kris Hallenga Story, who was diagnosed with stage 4 breast cancer at just 23 years old – didn’t want her story to unfold like this. Instead, she decided she would live harder, fuller, and with even more purpose. “She was bursting with life and ideas and she was desperate to make big things happen,” her twin sister Maren tells the camera. “Getting every ounce out of this life was a way to keep this disease under control.”

For Hallenga, that sense of purpose came in the form of telling as many young people as possible to check their breasts – a widespread campaign that would culminate in the still-active charity CoppaFeel!. Women in Britain are not invited for breast screening until they are 50 years old (when they are most at risk), although breast cancer can of course strike at any age. Hallenga wanted to ensure that other young people knew this. She wanted to save lives. But she also wanted to make things right talk about cancer less scary. So in 2013 she made a film for the BBC about living with breast cancer, Kris: Dying to live. And then, in the decade that followed, the cameras invited again and again. This film, by director Neil Bonner, is the result of those images.

Although The Kris Hallenga Story is ostensibly based on a cancer diagnosis, the film is more broadly about Kris’ life, which was bigger than that. She grew up in Germany with her twin sister, whom she clearly adored. She loved to run around the yard and make dens. She was articulate, imaginative and fun to be around. As a young adult, she was adrift, like all of us, but breast cancer awareness became something she was passionate about. “Cancer gave me a life I could never have imagined,” she says early in the documentary. She was fearless in a way that seems completely contagious, even through a screen. In 2009 she won a Pride of Britain award for her charity work. “You can’t say no to Kris,” says Fearne Cotton, who ran a half marathon for CoppaFeel! and immediately became her friend. “I loved her from the moment I met her.”

The film doesn’t always make it easy to watch. You see how she is diagnosed with multiple brain tumors and how her cancer continues to develop. But there are also moments when she is alarmingly animated: projecting “1 in 3 will be diagnosed. #RETHINKCANCER” on the side of the Houses of Parliament like it’s a heist movie, or because you’re there for the birth of Maren’s son, Herbie. That’s life, isn’t it? There are horrible moments and beautiful moments, and some lives end up being a lot shorter than others. In 2017, she stepped down as CEO of CoppaFeel! to focus on herself and how she wanted to spend her time. “When I held Herbie,” Kris says, “he reaffirmed something very reassuring that I already knew: that life goes on.”

Amazingly, Kris was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer in 2013 and went on to live a full and remarkable life for about a decade. And it’s also amazing – and funny and nice – that she decided to organize her own funeral so she could still be alive to attend it. What we see at the beginning and near the end: Kris with her head painted in dramatic, sparkling silver, as Dawn French delivers a eulogy to a crowded church. “Right now I’m very happy, and I feel such heartbreaking love,” she said at her own funeral. “Life can be so good. But I think mine has been especially good because I’ve had Maren by my side since we met in the womb. If you have a Maren, you never feel true loneliness. How lucky am I?”

Kris died earlier this year, and her sister and friends scattered her ashes over the waves on a sunny day. She also managed to save many lives. The film shows her receiving stacks of letters from young women in their 20s and older who were diagnosed with breast cancer early enough to be treated after becoming aware of the signs and symptoms, thanks to the charity Kris founded.

“The thing about death is that it’s so terribly final,” Kris says, addressing the crowd at her own funeral. “Whereas life, well, life is full of opportunities. So let’s seize these opportunities. Let’s live fully, love deeply and make today count.”