It's Not Yet Dark

It's Not Yet Dark is a heartfelt and stirring documentary

It’s Not Yet Dark is an uplifting portrait of a debilitated man driven to excel by a relentless desire to live life and love those who surround him.

Although “Dark” eschews overly graphic depiction of the more horrific physiological aspects of MND and barely touches upon the financial toll the illness clearly takes, this is as real a human story as it gets.

This movie shows how Fitzmaurice was able to direct the picture — scheduling the shot so that he could efficiently marshal his energy was a big part of the process, as of course was the “eye gaze” computer.

Painful to watch and uncomfortably intimate at times, perhaps by design, It’s Not Yet Dark could have been very dark indeed.

Not a film for cynics, It’s Not Yet Dark at times risks overplaying its heart-on-sleeve emotions, as Fitzmaurice also hazards in his writing. But both subject and execution here summon the skill, as well as sincerity, required to overcome skepticism.

It’s the questions that Fenton can’t answer — maybe even the questions he doesn’t mean to ask — that make It’s Not Yet Dark such an illuminating experience.