A spoiler, and a superb one, for one in all Sundance‘s finest movies of this 12 months: Ryan White’s loving, luminous documentary “Come See Me within the Good Mild” doesn’t finish in darkness, or demise, and even in the way in which its personal filmmaker and topics had been anticipating it to. As an alternative, the movie, which follows genderqueer poet Andrea Gibson and their spouse, fellow poet Megan Falley, as they wrestle with Gibson’s aggressive ovarian most cancers, is a celebration of life in all its messy glory.
When White (“Pamela: A Love Story,” “The Keepers,” “Serena”) was introduced on to the movie by producer Tig Notaro (who joined him at our studio) and her producing companion Stef Willen, he anticipated the movie would finish with Gibson’s demise. So did Gibson and Falley, who even joke about it within the opening scene. The spoiler? Gibson was readily available to have a good time the movie’s premiere at Sundance final week.
“It positively developed into a unique movie than I had in my head originally, and I imagine what Andrea had of their head as nicely,” White instructed IndieWire when he and Notaro visited the IndieWire studio. “So I by no means met Andrea till I went there [to Gibson’s house] with a digicam. Andrea and Megan totally trusted Tig and Steph, they mentioned, ‘We picked filmmakers.’ Jess [producer Hargrave] and I confirmed up in Colorado, pulled into the driveway, Andrea and Meg got here out, hugged us, and Andrea mentioned to me, ‘Nicely, I assume you’re going to be with me once I die, welcome to my house.’”
And Gibson, a gifted slam poet who can be possessed of a serious wit, would even joke about it throughout the taking pictures of the movie.
“That was the belief all alongside,” he mentioned. “ Andrea may be very humorous, has darkish humor, [and] it turned some extent of humor all through the movie, when Andrea would get a superb most cancers [level test] outcome, they’d take a look at me and say like, ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I’m ruining your movie, I would really be just like the miracle youngster.’”
Finally, White and Hargrave fell so in love with their topics that it really helped higher information the story they had been making an attempt to inform. Not one about demise, however one thing else fully. And why does that have to have the anticipated ending?
“As we continued filming, we fell in love with Andrea and Meg,” White mentioned. “They really began saying ‘I like you’ to us after our first shoot. So the concept somebody that we love was going to die whereas had been taking pictures them, was actually scary and traumatizing. … We entered it pondering, at the very least I did, that it was going to be a movie about Andrea’s demise. And whereas we had been taking pictures it, we began to to grasp, this isn’t a movie about dying. It’s a movie about mortality, however it’s all about dwelling and the time that we have now on this Earth. So why does the hero should die ultimately?”
“Come See Me within the Good Mild” premiered on the 2025 Sundance Movie Competition. It’s at the moment searching for U.S. distribution.
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