Come See Me in the Good Light review frank, funny and inspiring documentary tackles cancer

"It is impossible to talk about cancer without invoking another Big C: cliche. Illness and pain, journeys and battles, finding appreciation for life while reckoning with death these are the building blocks of cancer stories, at once uniquely devastating and devastatingly common. The poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, romantic partners for over a decade, took divergent approaches to the Big C. As a writer and editor, Falley strived to eradicate cliche; Gibson, as Falley put it, would instead double down."

"Diagnosed with incurable ovarian cancer in their late 40s, Gibson, the poet laureate of Colorado thus chose to double down on mantras we often aspire to embody but forget to practice: live fully, laugh more, love harder. Savor it all. This is the beginning of a nightmare, I thought my worst fear come true, they say early in the exquisite new documentary Come See Me In The Good Light."

"But stay with me because my story is about happiness being easier to find once we realize we do not have forever to find it. It is cliche. And yet, as told by Gibson and Falley in poetry, prose and whispers in bed at their home in rural Longmont, Colorado, such happiness is tender, hard-won and luminous. Their heart-forward film, directed by Ryan White, sits with plenty of pain in what the couple know will be some of their last months together:"

Poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley, longtime romantic partners, respond differently to Gibson's diagnosis of incurable ovarian cancer: Falley resists cliche while Gibson embraces familiar mantras of living fully. They pursue tenderness and daily joy amid treatment cycles measured in three-week increments, balancing doctor visits, chemotherapy and the raw grief of impending loss. Intimacy appears in whispered moments at home, small comforts and candid humor, even through novelty phone filters. The couple documents shock, processing and fleeting lightness as they navigate each high and low, making ordinary moments luminous amid the limits imposed by illness.

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