Nate At The Movies

THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS.

My fingers are crossed that today’s my last snow day so I can go back to school tomorrow, but that snow just isn’t melting. I’ve been grateful, though, for the time I’ve had to put a significant dent in my Oscars Death Race, which continued today with Come See Me in the Good Light, a documentary with an absurd amount of craft and a ton to say about life and death using some really pretty words.

Andrea and Meg’s love story amidst a cancer diagnosis kept reminding me of Jon Batiste and Suleika Jaouad—or even Ed Sheeran and his wife in their miniseries—whose relationship was depicted in American Symphony a few years ago. I appreciated the very comprehensive look at Andrea’s life, tackling their experiences with homophobia and bullying and cancer, demonstrating just how resilient they were time and time again. Their acceptance of the realities of life and death was also refreshing, and I can only hope to reach that level of clarity someday.

Admittedly, the documentary dragged pretty significantly because of a lack of activity and its highly conversational execution, but Gibson and Ryan White made the journey as beautiful as they could. The combination of Gibson’s poetry and White’s cinematography was lovely, and I may have even been moved by some of Andrea’s poems. I was a vocal poem hater in middle school, and though I don’t find myself reading poetry for fun today, I can appreciate it much more now—in the same way I do Shakespeare—and Gibson had a crazy poetic talent. So conversational, but so visual and relatable.

The documentary coming to a head at Gibson’s final show was so satisfying, and I bet it was incredibly cathartic for both Andrea and Meg. The medical ups and downs near the end were heartbreaking for sure, but Gibson made sure to “end on a make”, as they put it. Come See Me in the Good Light was warm, uplifting, and real, and though I don’t think it has the juice to take on the political docs it’ll be competing against at the Oscars, its celebration of the life and work of Andrea Gibson deserves that love.