Documentary filmmakers are used to pivoting, to letting the story take form as they report it, to rolling with the punches. When documentary filmmaker Ryan White took on his latest function, “Come See Me within the Good Mild,” the director behind such movies as “Pamela: A Love Story,” “The Keepers,” and “Serena” had a special form of ending in thoughts. However, through the course of each filming the doc concerning the beloved genderqueer poet laureate Andrea Gibson and its strong pageant rollout (following its Sundance debut in January), the filmmaker was delighted by the bizarre methods life itself unfolded.
In brief, a spoiler, and a superb one: Whereas White and almost everybody else who labored on the movie (together with Gibson) anticipated that it might finish with Gibson’s demise from aggressive ovarian most cancers, it didn’t. Gibson was even capable of attend the movie’s premiere in Park Metropolis, Utah, an exquisite, tear-stained celebration of their outstanding life and their seemingly indomitable spirit.
On Monday, Gibson’s life — greater than any movie, even one as wealthy as White’s — got here to an finish. Gibson’s demise was introduced on social media by their spouse, Megan Falley, who shared that “Andrea Gibson died of their dwelling (in Boulder, Colorado) surrounded by their spouse, Meg, 4 ex-girlfriends, their mom and father, dozens of mates, and their three beloved canine.”
The outpouring of affection, grief, and all the things in between has been profound, and we anticipate that when White’s movie is launched by Apple this fall, these emotions will solely multiply when extra viewers get to “meet” Andrea and Megan by the use of the magic of cinema. White’s movie was already one of many yr’s finest documentaries, the type of movie that made this critic and author cry inside its first 5 minutes, however by no means feels tacky or manipulative or weepy for the hell of it.
With the added coda and weight of Gibson’s passing, it would undoubtedly tackle nonetheless extra resonance. And but, Gibson’s life and work, their marriage to fellow poet Falley, and the (as our critic Alison Foreman put it in her assessment) “putting and ethereal” movie White made about all of that (and extra!) already made for a few of the yr’s finest non-fiction viewing.
It’s unclear how Gibson’s passing will affect Apple’s rollout of the Sundance award winner this fall (IndieWire has reached out to ask about any new plans and tributes within the works, and can replace this text if and when they’re shared, that is really not the time to hurry these concepts), however the movie was already a outstanding celebration and a real crowdpleaser. These emotions will solely develop over time.
It may also be taken completely by itself face, its personal full story, one with a special type of ending. Isn’t it good to assume so?
“We entered it pondering, not less than I did, that it was going to be a movie about Andrea’s demise,” White instructed IndieWire at Sundance. “And whereas we had been taking pictures it, we began 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’ve on this Earth. So why does the hero must die ultimately?”
AppleTV+ will launch “Come See Me within the Good Mild” this fall.