Based on 4 votes and 1 reviews.
While the story plays out, and grand vistas roll past us on screen, the string players breath and fingers and seat shuffles are present, hopefully making it sound human. If death does one thing well, it’s to shine a stark spotlight on life, and the love we feel for one another, or even just the beauty of the hills and fields around us. It's journey away from the complex cognitive outer layer that once defined them, through the jumble and tangle of emotions created through their life experiences, to the center of their being That really resonates with the way the film portrays the relationship with the condition and with each other. It’s now just the two of them trying to reach each other and wrestle with the questions of cognition and choice, because that’s one of the harshest things about this, is feeling choice has been taken away. Indeed, dementia does not discriminate, and though cinema has a long and rich history of gay storytelling that directly examines sexuality, the film reflects a shared experience through the lens of a committed, long-term relationship between two men. You could easily swap it out for a heterosexual couple, and it wouldn’t matter. But equally, the fact it’s a gay couple adds a whole other element to it. How with love, trust, and compassion, it’s possible to make this difficult stage of life empowering and life-affirming, not only for the person that’s dying, but for the people around them. The older we get, the more we feel that the specific and the universal are connected. Looking at big themes as big themes just always feels like it gets you nowhere, if that’s all you’re doing. Equally, everyday realities, if you’re attempting to detach them from anything wider, then it’s a dead end as well. All sorrows are alike. But we think if you’re trying to make something that has a universal resonance, the way in is through the very personal and the very specific, and this film is a study in that. written by Gregory Mann