A few weeks ago, I was reading about Oscar predictions when I kept seeing Come See Me in the Good Light pop up on numerous best documentaries lists. After learning about this 2025 movie about a decorated poet coming to terms with their life and terminal cancer diagnosis, I decided to give it a watch with my Apple TV subscription.
I’m going to be completely honest, this is a harrowing, heartbreaking, and unflinching portrait of illness, depression, anxiety, and artistic expression. That said, this beautiful and poignant documentary about Andrea Gibson offers a surprisingly hopeful take on terminal illness, death, and acceptance. Everyone, and I mean everyone, should watch this…
On The Surface, Come See Me In The Good Light Sounded Like A Depressing Experience
If you watch the first part of the Come See Me in the Good Light (or at least the film's trailer), it’s easy to get the impression that this is going to be a heartwrenching story. I mean, it’s about a person coming to terms with their fate, staring their mortality in the eyes. How could it not be sad? There’s bad news, there’s pain, there’s suffering, there’s the looming presence of death, and a fleeting number of tomorrows.
There were multiple times while watching the Apple TV original where I was brought to tears, where I wanted to quit watching because I was afraid of what was to come, and where I kept thinking about what I would do in that situation. This documentary doesn’t tiptoe through death or a sense of living grief; instead, it pushes through full-steam ahead, which creates a stark and at times incredibly sad experience. It was terrifying, but there was something I wasn’t expecting…
This Is A Story About Finding Hope In The Face Of Death
Illness, death, and uncertainty are all present throughout Come See Me in the Good Light. That is to be expected, considering this is a documentary about someone coming to terms with the fact that they don’t have long to live. However, this is not a story about someone giving up, as Andrea Gibson, along with their wife and fellow poet Megan Falley, never gave up, never gave in, and never caved to the mounting pressure around them.
Throughout the documentary, Gibson is trying to get to a place in their cancer journey where they can perform in front of a live audience for the first time in years. Battling the cancer that has spread throughout their entire body, the effects of chemotherapy treatments, and their inevitable death, Gibson fights like hell to get on stage, creating one of the most empowering and hopeful moments I’ve seen all year.
There’s another scene in the film where Gibson talks about living with depression throughout their life, and how it became a part of who they were all those years. However, when they found out they had cancer, they wanted to truly live, and those dark thoughts went by the wayside. If that’s not hopeful, I don’t know what is.
Come See Me in the Good Light ended up being one of the biggest surprises this year, and it’s a documentary I think everyone should watch at least once.
