Come See Me in the Good Light 2025

In one of the abounding memorable curve from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” (1982), Dr. David Marcus (Merritt Butrick) echoes a adduce already accurate by his father, Adm. James T. Kirk (William Shatner), that “how we face afterlife is at atomic as important as how we face life.” A blue Kirk, who was in the affliction of affliction over the accident of his best acquaintance at the time, dismissively responds by chalking up the affect to “just words.” But, admitting Kirk’s aloof reply, his astute ascertainment speaks volumes, abnormally for those who are staring bottomward the anticipation of their own demise. And that’s decidedly accordant in the minds of individuals who are adverse the achievability of an abortive alteration while still in the prime of life. Ironically, though, that’s absolutely the axial affair of the latest documentary affection from filmmaker Ryan White, a account of the final year of the activity of announced chat artisan Andrea Gibson (1975-2025), who developed a afterward on par with that of a bedrock star, generally assuming to sold-out audiences in the 1990s and 2000s. Gibson, who would after go on to become Artisan Laureate of the State of Colorado, was diagnosed with ovarian blight in 2021, the alpha of a four-year adventure characterized by alternating occurrences of ache access and remission. However, as this alternating arrangement continued, Gibson began to see the aisle of area affairs were headed and started attractive at how to adapt for what appeared to be an assured eventuality. As the blur unfolds, with the admiring and abiding abutment of angrily adherent accomplice and adolescent poet/writer Megan Falley, Gibson carefully examines affairs of activity – and abutting afterlife – from an arrangement of perspectives, attempting to appear to agreement with a ache that has been boring but steadily worsening. In the advance of the picture’s time frame, Gibson looks aback on a activity as an artisan and gender character activist, as able-bodied as the challenges of hard-won self-acceptance. The blur additionally shares Gibson’s observations on affairs of love, charge and justice, as able-bodied as the boldness to backpack on and complete admired tasks with what time is left. The aftereffect is a ardent and at times decidedly amusing account of a gifted, cogitating alone courageously abutting the end of activity with adroitness and a acceptable spirit of actuality beholden for what was and for what charcoal in whatever time is left. For its efforts, the account was called one of 2025’s Top 5 Documentaries from the National Board of Review and becoming an Independent Spirit Award choice for best documentary feature. And, alike admitting the account has a addiction to become somewhat repetitive as it plays out, it about eloquently embodies the existential absorbed bidding at the alpha of this evaluation, reminding us all to adapt for what’s to appear – as able-bodied as whatever ability appear next.