Review: Come See Me in the Good Light

Review: Come See Me in the Good Light

A review by Marc Primo

Andrea Gibson once wrote in the poem Your Life, "You're going to look at all your options and choose conviction." That unwavering determination shaped much of the late poet laureate's journey, whether exploring their gender identity, navigating love, confronting despair, or facing the reality of an ovarian cancer diagnosis. Ryan White's long-term documentary, Come See Me in the Good Light, which earned Sundance's Festival Favorite Award earlier this year, turns its lens toward that exact resilience.

Telling a story about cancer is never simple. It's a subject that's often weighed down by clichés or sentimentality, especially on screen. Though Come See Me in the Good Light occasionally brushes up against those familiar emotional beats, the film ultimately finds its strength in its closeness. White keeps the focus tight on Gibson and their wife, poet Megan Falley, tracing how they move through fear, hope, and the unknown together.

The result is a portrait that feels true to Gibson's spirit, gentle, reflective, and deeply intentional. Every moment carries the emotional clarity one expects from a poet who spent their life trying to see, and help others see, the world more honestly.

Gibson received their diagnosis in 2021, and even after undergoing an emergency hysterectomy, the cancer returned and eventually spread, an ongoing fight the documentary captures in real time. The film brings viewers into the most private corners of their lives: sitting beside them in medical consultations, sharing quiet moments in bed with Megan Falley, and joining meals filled with the easy laughter of friends. Rather than staying detached, director Ryan White opts for an approach that feels participatory, almost as if the audience has been invited into the room.

Interwoven throughout the film are excerpts of Gibson reading their own work, dropped in at moments when their poetry naturally deepens the emotional arc. It becomes unmistakable how inseparable their art is from who they are; their writing carries the same raw honesty found in their everyday conversations.

Poetry often conjures images of carefully sculpted language, polished over time. But Gibson's brilliance flowed straight from ordinary moments, they had a way of turning casual conversation into something luminous. That instinctive lyricism, paired with their self-mocking jokes about a supposedly "small" vocabulary and their belief that poems shouldn't feel unreachable, forms a thread that runs warmly through the entire film.

White's documentary makes an apparent attempt to mirror the musicality of Gibson's writing, reaching for a similar poetic flow. In pursuing that tone, the film occasionally slips into familiar imagery and gentle, predictable symbolism. Gibson themselves admit to being drawn to these emotional embellishments, suggesting that these tendencies reflect their personality. Still, from a cinematic standpoint, there are moments when the viewer hopes for a pause from the deliberately polished choices. Fortunately, the documentary allows humor to break through at key points, giving the story small bursts of freshness that counterbalance its more repetitive sentiments.

The emotional rhythm of the film, its shifts between lightness and grief, feels almost inevitable, since both laughter and sorrow often function as survival tools. Yet labeling Come See Me in the Good Light as merely a story about illness would miss the compassion at its core. White weaves in older footage from Gibson's childhood and early adulthood: finding their place as a queer kid in a small Maine town, shooting baskets, and tentatively entering the world of slam poetry. These glimpses build a wider understanding of someone still shaping themselves.

Equally central is Gibson's relationship with Megan Falley. Their partnership isn't treated as a subplot but as the backbone of the narrative. As the two navigate instability together, their closeness becomes the film's grounding force. Their love brings a steady, earthy quality to the story, something that helps carry the memoir beyond its heaviest moments and infuses it with a sense of uplift.

As the couple tracks the cancer's movement every few weeks, cracks jokes about improbable remedies, or plays with an iPhone's aging filter, a quiet tenderness runs beneath their daily battles. The moments are tinged with humor, but they're also threaded with a soft kind of hope that keeps them moving forward.

Although Come See Me in the Good Light centers on Gibson's experience, the film ultimately becomes a portrait of two writers bound by devotion. Rather than outrunning sorrow or denying its presence, they move through it hand in hand, fully present for every rise and fall. Together, they carve out a way of being that keeps them connected, intentional, and deeply human, even when the circumstances around them feel immovable.