SummaryCome See Me in the Good Light is a poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. Through laughter and unwavering love, they transform pain into purpose, and mortality into a moving celebration of resilience.
SummaryCome See Me in the Good Light is a poignant and unexpectedly funny love story about poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley facing an incurable cancer diagnosis with joy, wit and an unshakable partnership. Through laughter and unwavering love, they transform pain into purpose, and mortality into a moving celebration of resilience.
Nonfiction films often grapple with mortality and the meaning of existence, and usually those center on grief. This one wraps its arms around the full range of feeling that follows a terminal diagnosis: fear, love, desire, anger, wonder, hope, despair, even joy.
White lands on an organic happy ending that doesn’t negate Gibson’s sad circumstance but, instead, reinforces everything that was so inspirational about their poetry and worldview.
White smartly weaves Gibson’s evolution as a poet and performer, commanding stages like a rockstar –“we called them the gay James Dean,” Falley jokes – with their hopes to stage one final show, a celebration of life before their death.
Learning about Gibson’s ‘roid rage from their treatment, and Falley’s acceptance of it, is a more moving example of their care for one another than much of what the film finds in their shared profession.
"Come See Me in the Good Light" is a ****, yet lovely portrait of blinding, beautiful, reckless **** love; of time passing and slipping away, captured in small moments to be held and cherished like wildflowers plucked from the earth. In 2021, poet Andrea Gibson was diagnosed with an aggressive form of ovarian cancer that ultimately led to their death in July of this year. Before their death, director Ryan White chronicled Gibson's struggle with cancer as well as their marriage to fellow writer, Megan Falley, in Come See Me in the Good Light, a moving and deeply incisive portrait resilience and human connection in the face of death that takes a warts and all approach to the painful realities of living with cancer. I kept finding myself thinking of the line from Angels in America in which a dying man admonishes the Heavenly Council that "I want more life," despite the constant struggle and pain that accompanies in. Here we see a poet facing death, craving more life yet appreciating every lovely, painful, fleeting moment. By allowing Gibson's words to take center stage, White isn't so much documenting an artist's last show and final days, it feels as though new life is being breathed into them; a poem come to life, a ray of light in death's shadow. It is at once a tribute to Gibson as an artist, and also an appropriate effect for a film about the beauty in every second of life. The pace and cinematography beautifully match the poetic nature of its participants, and the documentary will have you in tears for happy and heartbreaking moments throughout. This doesn't feel like a paint-by-numbers life-of-the-artist documentary, it feels like a work of art all its own, at once an extension and an exploration of Gibson's art. Fans of the poet will likely find a lot to love here, but even for the uninitiated. "Come See Me in the Good Light" feels like something to be cherished, a work of gossamer beauty that reinforces the power of its poet's words.