DIRECTED BY

Simon Chambers

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SYNOPSIS

Reluctantly taking on the task of caring for his dying actor uncle, filmmaker Simon embarks on a five-year odyssey of craziness, frustration and ultimately awareness.

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Director Simon Chambers (who also stars in the documentary) has moved out to India to shoot a film about cars. One day, he suddenly receives a call from his uncle David to say that “I think I may be dying”. What the audience doesn’t realise yet is that David is more dramatic than dying. In fact, the gay retired-actor, now retired school teacher, is living in a sate of clutter at home, constantly quoting William Shakespeare. While Simon is now back and is looking after his uncle, he turns on his camera and starts filming David for a film worthy of a Shakespearean play.

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I went into Much Ado About Dying without seeing a single trailer or clip, so I went along for the ride of Simon Chambers’ documentary and what a journey it is! We find Simon begrudgingly returning to England as he’s in the middle of trying to find himself out working in India, and what starts out as aiming to be in town ‘for a few weeks’ becomes a few years as he essentially becomes David’s carer. Throughout the course of the documentary, we follow the tales of the two men, showing David is aware that his incapabilities in certain tasks (such as not being able to step outside his own flat in a long time) requires him to seek help, but he’s still headstrong in the manner of which these tasks are attended to and he’s too preoccupied with theatre and music to worry about such mundane tasks like tidying (tins of soup, papers everywhere, and then there’s the excessive amounts of electric heaters scattered across the flat and there’s toothpaste spread along skirting boards and extension leads as David heard somewhere that mice aren’t fond of mint) and configuring his finances. Meanwhile Simon showcases his vulnerability to the audience, how conflicted he feels about how to handle his uncles life (particularly when events lead to David moving in with an immigrant couple from next door, to learning that his uncle may be getting fleeced by someone David knows), as well as how helpless he feels, to finally the sense of guilt he feels that being his carer may at a time become overwhelming that he may need to find a care home for David.

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At times the interactions between David and Simon can be somewhat comedic to the audience, from Simon trying to make sense of why David requires multiple wall clocks as a bundle purchase, to David repeatedly asking for Simon to help pull his pajama bottoms further and further up whilst his in a hospital bed. Amongst the comedy however is some beautifully intimate moments captured on film, one moment during a piece of music you can see on David’s face that he’s literally in a euphoric state, and is one scene between David and Simon on camera that I found to be especially moving. Whilst documenting his time spend with his uncle, Simon has also managed to fortuitously tackle the topic of the British care and welfare systems and how it is seemingly at breaking point if not in crisis as he struggled to maintain stability of care for David who keeps declining, between not being able to have a professional carer stay steady with him, to Simon fearing for his uncles mental stable but is deemed to be okay by the doctors’ tests and examinations.

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VERDICT

Even though Much Ado About Dying is a personal story, it definitely has universal appeal as it’s a subject that many people face, particularly on a national scale. Immediately touching and heartfelt, I personally hope that Simon Chambers receives the distribution required sooner rather than later to showcase this documentary to a wider audience.

★★★★½