A Love That Never Dies review: An honest, moving look at family, loss, and bereavement as a grieving couple travel as a catharsis for their pain, meeting other grieving parents along their journey.
A Love That Never Dies review by Awais Irfan.
A Love That Never Dies review
This is a documentary that often feels like anything but it plays out as a road trip film, as Jane Harris and Jimmy Edmonds travel across the U.S making their way to Vietnam where their son passed away in a traffic accident. Along the way, they encounter other grieving parents and chat with them about their grief and how they’ve managed to cope. It is an honest, very real and very moving look at the bereavement process – meditative and powerful in its nature. Our director’s Harris and Edmonds don’t tiptoe around the subject; the film is never self-indulgent or melodramatic with how it deals with its themes on hand and understands its material with care and assurance.
What is so beautiful about the way the story is told is that it shows no one experiences grief the same way… Yet, there is something kindred about it – the way it brings people closer. It’s sad to watch people talk about their pain, although there’s something equally warming watching Harris and Edmonds find comfort within shared loss – they’re not alone, and neither are the parents and families interviewed throughout the film. The individual stories themselves are powerful; the film doesn’t shy away from the details of the deaths and circumstances surrounding them.
A Love That Never Dies does feel a little rough at times. The story can feel a bit scattered and there isn’t a lot going on beyond what’s written on the tin – it’s a pretty simplistic film in that regard. The recreations do feel a bit forced and feel like clunky jigsaw pieces shoved into the wrong puzzle. As far as cinematic endeavours go, it lacks polish. But the film more than makes up for that in its emotional core. This is a resonating and powerful piece; it’s honest and heartbreaking yet often finds heart in its sobriety and serenity so as not to be wholly bleak and miserable. It’s a poignant look at family and loss and works in what it sets out to achieve. So, for that, it’s a success.
A Love That Never Dies review by Awais Irfan, May 2018.
A Love That Never Dies is released on Friday 18th May 2018.
