Much Ado About Dying

When the filmmaker Simon Chambers receives a call from his elderly gay uncle – “I think I may be dying!” – he takes it as a summons. As it turns out, eccentric Uncle David, a retired actor living alone in a cluttered, mouse-infested London house, is being dramatic, sort of: For the next five years, Chambers both cares for and documents him, through all his performative exuberance (constantly acting out passages of King Lear) and anarchic charisma (swinging from boisterous humor to short temper), as various people (including a sexy young hustler) possibly take advantage of him.

As their lives become encumbered by hospital visits, a house fire, and Britain's inadequate eldercare system, the younger man (also single and queer) reflects with aching honesty on what may await him in the years to come, in this moving yet hilarious film. (description courtesy of Film Forum)

“Joyous clarity…bittersweet empathy… in this achingly funny-sad film." -Variety

"In its refreshingly frank look at the end of life, Much Ado About Dying becomes a thought-provoking study of what it means to live." -Screen Daily

"The best kind of documentary. It will make you laugh and cry. It will also make you pause for thought." -BackSeat Mafia

"Chambers’ family-filming-family masterpiece is a tender and often funny chronicle of a dying man who secretes his brilliant charisma…" -The Film Verdict