On its surface, Come See Me in the Good Light is a film about death. But it’s really a film about the vibrant beauty of life. Filmed for just under a year, beginning in January 2024, it chronicles that period in the life of spoken word poet Andrea Gibson and their partner, poet Megan Falley. The pair began their relationship in 2015, and Falley proposed to Gibson in the summer of 2022. Their love is wonderful to see on screen, and makes for one of the great romance stories you’ll see in a movie this year.
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But Come See Me in the Good Light follows an especially difficult time in the couple’s lives, as they deal with the reality of Gibson’s incurable ovarian cancer, which they were diagnosed with on July 14, 2021 and died from exactly four years later. With the film now streaming on Apple TV, the film’s director, Ryan White (Pamela: A Love Story), along with Falley, spoke to TIME about one of the year’s most striking documentaries.
The idea for the documentary came from comedian Tig Notaro and producer Stef Willen, longtime friends of Gibson and Falley, who would go on to produce the film. “My producer Jessica Hargrave and I would run into Tig from time to time, and we’d always ask her to bring us an idea for a comedy documentary,” says White. “She called Jess with this idea, which obviously did not sound funny at face value.”
But there is plenty of humor in Come See Me in the Good Light, which is imbued with the warmth of Falley and Gibson’s love, radiating off the screen as they spend time in their Colorado home with their three dogs. When White went to meet Gibson and Falley, he brought his crew to film, and immediately felt a sense of joy. “It was only two or three days, but we left that shoot thinking, ‘Oh my god, we have to make this movie,” he recalls. “It exceeded all our expectations.”
Read more: Why I’m Replacing Doomscrolling With Poetry
Though you might expect Falley and Gibson to feel trepidation at having such a vulnerable period of their lives documented on camera, they were on board from the beginning. “We really had an immediate ‘yes’ to the project,” says Falley.
For the couple, turning their story into a documentary provided the opportunity to remind them of what’s most important: one another. “We’d done a lot of the cancer journey just the two of us. And I think we had gotten really hard news, like a week before they asked us if we wanted to film,” explains Falley. “The presence of a crew and a camera would remind us to keep going as we had been, with our love and our connection, keeping our commitment to the present moment and to finding joy. That was a main reason that we said yes.”
Things felt great from the jump. “There was this timeless alchemy of connection between all of us,” says Falley. She recalls that when White first came to shoot, the crew tagged along to Gibson’s radiation appointment: “There was this epic pink sunset as they were leaving, and I remember Andrea and I both saying goodbye to them and telling them we loved them.”
White and his crew became a sort of family to Falley and Gibson, and Gibson developed a close friendship in particular with cinematographer Brandon Somerhalder. White had initially been fearful of being invasive when he first met the couple. But he found himself immediately disarmed by Gibson’s charm. “I’d also argue that’s the power of their poetry,” says White. “I can’t tell you how many people have seen this film and said, ‘Oh my god, I love poetry now.’ And I’m talking about demographics you wouldn’t think would be into a non-binary queer activist’s poetry. Old Republican dudes in Florida now love Andrea’s poetry.”
For those who’ve never heard or read a syllable of Gibson’s work, Come See Me in the Good Light is a gateway into their remarkable artistry. There’s a simplicity to their work—Gibson jokes throughout the movie that they only know five words. It is accessible, yet profound, and it’s easy to understand how those who might not count themselves as poetry fanatics would fall in love with their poems. As Gibson says about their poetry in the film, “Why write a poem that goes over somebody’s head, let alone somebody’s heart?”
White says that deciding which of Gibson’s poems to include in the film was “the hardest part of the edit,” especially considering that they had published seven books and seven albums of poetry. They offered an opportunity to tell Gibson’s story in an unconventional way. “Documentaries need some form of exposition to tell you who your characters are, but if you can do it through a poet’s own words and not through interviews, it’s a pretty amazing creative opportunity.”
One of the most striking and emotional pieces in the film is “Little Things,” which details a bucket list of what Gibson wanted to achieve before her death—and they wrote it specially for the film. “Andrea wasn’t writing a ton while we were filming, but they’d always ask for a prompt to help create,” White says. Andrea spoke a lot about not wanting to travel the world once you find out that you’re dying, instead wanting to do things like fix the closet doorknob. I prompted them to write about that, and they did it for the film.”
Come See Me in the Good Light is a showcase not only of Gibson’s work, but of Gibson and Falley’s relationship. The documentary arrives at a time of great political unrest, with the queer community under threat in America. Falley believes it has the power to change the way people perceive queerness, and she’s experienced it firsthand. “My own brother had a MAGA hat on top of his Christmas tree last year,” she says. “We’d argue about politics constantly. He’s this hulking gym bro, but when he saw the film at Tribeca, he was hysterical, crying like I’ve never seen. After the movie, he apologized and told me he wants to be a better brother. All of the things we’d been arguing about don’t matter.”
“I think that there’s something about this film. Cancer touches everyone. It doesn’t matter if you’re liberal or conservative. Because we’re queer, he film is perhaps inherently political, which is so stupid. But the film itself doesn’t lead into politics the way that Andrea’s poetry did. You’re maybe just watching it, and it’s some time into the movie before you realize it’s about a non-binary person, and by that time, you’re already in love with Andrea, and you just welcomed someone into your home that you might not have before.’”
The main narrative thrust isn’t Gibson’s cancer, but the big spoken word poetry show they’re planning at the Paramount Theatre in Denver. “We were all so invested in Andrea making it to that stage,” White says. Their performance was far from guaranteed, as Gibson had previously had to cancel an entire tour due to their health. But on May 30 and 31, 2024, Gibson performed at the Paramount, in what would be their last shows.
Watching segments of the performance is poignant, especially in witnessing how the audience is completely enraptured by Gibson’s words. White shared a touching anecdote about the show that didn’t make it to screen. “Meg wears a necklace that says ‘Andrea’ on it throughout the film. She wore it at the live show. Jess, my producer, printed about 100 of these necklaces before the live show, and gave them out to everyone who worked at the Paramount—the stagehands, box office, drivers. Everyone wore them. It really took them by surprise. The necklaces were like a silent solidarity with Andrea from all of us.”
Thugh Gibson died in July, they were still well enough to able to attend the film’s Sundance premiere six months earlier with Falley.
“I’ve now seen the film a few times with Andrea beside me, and more times now without them. Andrea wasn’t writing a ton that final year. Their eyesight was struggling with the medication they were on, and it was hard to look at a computer,” says Falley. “They took great comfort in knowing that the actual filming process would be an art that they could make just by living.”
Gibson didn’t think they’d ever get to see the movie and believed the film would end with their death. But they were deeply moved to be able to see the film. “Andrea was pretty sick at the festival, but they were healthy enough to make the trip,” says Falley. “I distinctly remember them turning to me in the theatre, and their response was filled with gratitude. They said, ‘This is going to help so many people.’”
Says Falley, “For Andrea, that was the highest achievement in any art form.”