Ryan White and Tig Notaro on ‘Come See Me in the Good Light’: ‘It’s not a film about dying — it’s a film about living’
Denton Davidson
When Come See Me in the Good Light begins streaming on Apple TV on Nov. 14, 2025, audiences may brace for heartbreak — but what they’ll find instead is laughter, poetry, and a love story that redefines how we see mortality. Directed by Ryan White (Pamela, A Love Story, The Keepers) and produced by comedian Tig Notaro, the Apple TV documentary follows poets Andrea Gibson and Megan Falley as they face an incurable cancer diagnosis with raw humor and luminous joy.
“Whenever I introduce the film, I can see people bracing themselves for the saddest movie ever,” White tells Gold Derby. “But I want them to know before it starts — it’s actually one of the most joyful, funny films I’ve ever made.”
They were ready to be cracked wide open
White admits he was terrified before meeting Gibson, who was diagnosed with stage-four ovarian cancer. “I’m not someone who’s particularly comfortable with mortality,” he recalls. “I felt so invasive — how do you navigate this sensitively? But the moment Megan hugged me, I felt safe. Then Andrea came out and said, ‘I guess you’re going to be with me when I die.’ It completely disarmed me.” What followed, he said, was “the most profoundly human filmmaking experience of my life.”
Notaro, who had been friends with Gibson for 25 years, said the couple’s openness made them ideal documentary subjects. “These are poets — they reveal everything, talk about everything. There’s nothing off limits,” she says. “Everything was so precious, and then nothing was too precious.”
The art of finding joy
That fearlessness gave the film its unique tone. White said he tries to “disarm people” before screenings so they know it’s “an incredibly joyful” and “incredibly funny” film, not just a tear-jerker — and that proved true with audiences. He remembered Sundance crowds “laughing their asses off,” and Notaro turning to him: “That played like a Will Ferrell comedy.”
Nowhere is that humor more apparent than in one of the film’s most unexpected dinner-table moments. As Gibson and Falley chat playfully about “fingering” out her cancer — and how producer Stef Willen found herself being "thumbed" on occasion instead — the entire table bursts into laughter. “It’s such a perfect example of Andrea,” White says. “That was the day we met!”
That same spirit of finding light in darkness extended to the smallest details of their daily life. In his director’s statement, White recalled, “Whether it was fixing the ever-breaking mailbox or getting scary blood test results, time after time Andrea and Meg would turn moments of despair into moments of belly laughter. We felt so lucky to bear witness to it.”
Notaro’s take on finding humor in their story was simple: “You start rolling. That’s how you capture it.”
A love story told through poetry
The film begins with Gibson’s poem "Life Anthem," originally titled "Death Anthem." “Andrea told me, ‘This would be a great voiceover for my documentary,’” White recalls. “They were writing poems while we were making the movie because they were wrestling with what they were going through.” Their collaboration deepened with the film’s closing song, "Salt Then Sour Then Sweet," written by Gibson with Sara Bareilles and Brandi Carlile. “Our conversations were about what final thoughts Andrea wanted to leave the audience… and Andrea wrote it,” White said, noting how unusual that level of collaboration is for a documentarian.
Choosing life over loss
Gibson was alive to attend the Sundance premiere, where Come See Me in the Good Light made its debut. White recalls calling Andrea with the news of its acceptance: “Andrea said, ‘Are you telling me the movie that we’ve been making is almost finished — and that if I survive for six more weeks, I will see it?’ And I said, ‘Yes, that’s what I’m telling you.’”
He adds, “I would’ve thought when I began this film that the documentary would end with Andrea’s final breath… and as we edited it, it was like, why does the hero have to die in the end? That’s not what it’s about. Andrea was teaching us how to live.”
After the Sundance screening, Gibson leaned over to him and said, “That’s a good movie, Ryan.”
It's not a film about dying
For Notaro, the takeaway is clear. “It’s not a film about dying,” she says. “It’s about living. People leave with this sense of urgency of, God, I want to be happy. I want to live my life. What can I do differently?… It creates and spreads compassion.” She adds with a grin, “I’m in New York City doing mainstream press about poets… It makes me very happy.”
