This short, modest doc lets the magnitude of its subject speak for itself: it presents the final months in the life of Neil Platt, a 34-year-old British architect whose body is giving in to motor neurone disease and whose mind is trying to make sense of what it means for him, his wife and their one-year-old son.
Platt’s future is certain – he has months to live – but his blog and the letter he writes to his son, along with the memory box he prepares for him, all show him grappling with the idea of what life will be like without him. We sense that Platt wants this intimate (but never intrusive or hysterical) film made as a blunt record, and way of understanding, his condition. At one point he motions to whoever is behind the lens not to stop filming. Platt’s situation is extraordinary, but the real success of the film is that it captures the everyday events in the life of a dying person and those around them, while using subtle plays with sound and image to see the world through his eyes.