So Kirsten Johnson is a documentarian, and when her dad got diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, she decided to make a sort of documentary about his death. Or really, more of a mockumentary, because the idea she came up with and pitched to her dad was a movie where he “died” repeatedly by different means.

And so this is that, but it’s also more of a true documentary than that makes it sound, because it’s really about the time she spent with him at the end, while they were making this movie — she’s said in interviews that finding a way to make money while spending this time with her dad was one of her big motivators in doing it. So they’ll show them meeting with the stunt person and talking about how they’re going to do a particular thing, and the like. And then the fake-death footage will be interspersed in later in the movie, so you have this very normal documentary about this family relationship in this situation, and how they’re making a documentary together, except periodically one of the people in it seems to die.

It’s a clever conceit. But it’s not the conceit that holds it together, it’s the Johnsons’ relationship with each other, and especially seeing Dick Johnson’s visible decline over the course of the movie (which is filmed over a period of years), and how they deal with it. There is a kind of tone of serene acceptance and optimism underlying the movie, but… well, with this subject matter, it was never going to be a happy movie. Recommended, if you’re in a place where this is something you can handle.